


Here To Stay

by WeBuiltThePyramids



Category: Scorpion (TV 2014)
Genre: Angst, Established Callie, Established Quintis, Established Relationship, Established Waige, F/M, Happy Ending, Long-Distance Relationship, More Waige than the other two ships but they're all definitely there, No Smut, Quintis - Freeform, Relationship insecurity, Romance, Waige - Freeform, callie - Freeform, unlikely friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-19
Updated: 2017-10-17
Packaged: 2018-10-20 23:45:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 35
Words: 42,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10673244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WeBuiltThePyramids/pseuds/WeBuiltThePyramids
Summary: Walter and Paige must navigate a long distance relationship when he accepts a job that takes him away from Los Angeles.





	1. Chapter 1

“Paige, stop hogging the covers.”

Walter reached behind him, feeling for the comforter, surprised when he felt a thinner blanket than he expected, and no sign of body heat.  He rolled over, blinking in surprise, then shaking his head for clarity.

Right.  He’d had a late video conference with a scientist in Sydney and had opted to stay in the loft overnight.  Sitting up, he reached over to where he’d kicked the blanket and pulled it back over him before fishing his phone out from underneath the pillow and glancing at the time. Seven A.M.

“Ugh,” Walter grunted.  He had barely gotten three hours of sleep.  There were no cases planned for the day, but everyone would be arriving in two hours.  _I can sleep another twenty._   He set the alarm on his phone and rolled back over.

It seemed like only thirty seconds before the alarm chimed, and Walter groaned as he sat up and ran his hands through his hair.  “Time is a construct,” he muttered.

Suddenly, he heard the familiar sound of the garage’s door opening, and he was immediately on alert.   Walter jumped to his feet, slipping into his shoes and hurrying down the stairs.  He stopped halfway down, frowning in surprise when he saw a face he recognized.  “Cabe?”  He cocked his head, continuing down the steps at a more leisurely pace.  “What are you doing here so early?  Do we have a case?”

“In a way,” Cabe said.  “You got a minute?”

“I have one thousand, four hundred and forty minutes every day, same as you,” Walter said.  “Forty three thousand, eight hundred a month.  And five hundred twenty five thousand, six hundred in a year.  I feel like there’s a song about that.  I don’t remember.  Paige would know.”

“Oh, will you be quiet and listen to me?”  Cabe had a look of mock annoyance on his face.

Walter cleared his throat.  “Sorry.  Go on.”

Cabe gave an amused smirk, then cleared his throat.  “Homeland wants to have you teach your method for developing secure firewalls at military bases across the world.”

“Okay.” Walter furrowed his brow.  “I’m always willing to take on projects like that.  I just had a conference with an Australian scientist last night.  There has to be another reason why you showed up early to tell me about this.”

“Well, they’re worried about foreign factions somehow infiltrating any communication that happens over phones or the internet.”

“They’re worried that my apparently coveted security practices may not be secure?”  Walter raised an eyebrow.

“Not on your end, genius.  But Homeland wants you to go to each of these locations and personally instruct their computing specialists on how to create something that’s impermeable to our enemies.”

Walter shrugged.  “I don’t see any issue with that.  We travel for cases all the time.”

“This would be just you.  They don’t need the skills of the rest of the team and they don’t want to draw attention.  And...here’s the kicker, kid,” Cabe said, dropping his voice.  “They have fifty locations they want you to look at.  And they’ve designed a training program where you’d spend two to three days at each location.”

Walter realized what he was saying.  “So I’d be gone for five months.”

“Give or take a couple weeks.  Travel will add some time to that.”

Walter nodded slowly.  “That is a long time to be away from the team.  I...oh boy, I don’t...”

“I understand your concern,” Cabe said.  “That’s why I wanted to approach you with it privately first.  I know the gang can sometimes get a little overwhelming with all sharing their thoughts on something at the same time.  You want to talk it through?  I’ll listen.”

“Okay, well...” Walter shoved his hands in his pockets.  “If I’m not around, we still have Toby.  Behaviorist, medical skills.  Happy can do the mechanical side of things.  Sylvester’s got the math.  You’re the connections, the backup, and the gun.  Paige will probably like having a bit less translating to do for a little while,” he said with a smirk.  “Ralph can do some of the computer work, though some of my skills in that area does have to do with seeing so much over the years.  But they could have me standing by on cases to help out from afar...”  He sighed.  “I don’t like it, but...if I do this, we could minimize breaches and attacks on our military and civilians by...”

“Over fifty percent,” Cabe said.  “That’s what our experts are projecting.  The world would be a lot safer, son.”

Walter bit his lip and nodded.  “Yeah.  I’ll run it by everyone when they get here, but yeah.  I think I can do it.”


	2. Chapter 2

"So, let me get this straight. You're telling us that if you take this job…you would be away from the garage…for five months…not even dropping by on a weekend?"

"That is correct, Toby," Walter said with a nod.

"Is anyone else planning a fun day of experimenting with things that go boom?"

"Walter has never disapproved of those," Sylvester pointed out.

"But it's always more fun when the boss doesn't know," Toby said. "At least that's what I said to Happy the other day when we heated up that table.

"Okay," Paige said, holding a hand out to silence him.

"Big disgust face from the lady who used to put one of our communal bowls over her son's head to cut his hair." Happy pointed out.

" _I washed it afterwards_!"

"Guys," Cabe said. "The point. Not this. Focus."

"So…are you going to do it, Walt?" Sylvester asked.

Walter sighed, gesturing to Cabe. "Cabe wouldn't have brought it to me if it wasn't important. We're talking reducing crime by foreign factions by these amounts…" Walter shook his head. "Team Scorpion operates with the intention of servicing the Greater Good. This is the very definition of that."

"We save everybody," Paige said with a small nod.

"As best we can," Toby added.

"I don't want to accept this job without the agreement of the majority," Walter said. "We will be a man down…"

"A person down," Happy said with her eyebrows raised.

"A person down," Walter said, "on any cases that come up while I'm gone. I can communicate with you all during them, but I will be one less physical presence."

"This team works so well together because we all have these different strengths," Sylvester said. "We can work separately temporarily. But five months…"

"Five months is a long time," Paige agreed. "We had a completely case – less summer back when Walter was recovering from the car accident."

"Slightly different," Happy said. "We had no contact with Walt, and even when he came back he was operating at limited capacity for a few weeks. His brain will be fully functional this entire time and we can consult with him on cases when his expertise is needed."

"Plus, we do have Ralph," Sylvester pointed out, gesturing to Paige as the boy wasn't at the garage. "He obviously can't go on cases with us…"

"But he can do any necessary hacking," Paige finished. "He can do it from Walter's spare laptops even, so if someone tries to trace it it goes back to an adult, and the one that someone looking into Team Scorpion would expect to see doing the work. He could even use Walter's aliases?" She glanced at him for confirmation.

Walter nodded. "He absolutely could."

"Okay, well, I mean, let's just throw it out there," Toby said. "Does anyone flat out object to us being a person down for the fall?"

Silence overcame the garage. Happy looked at Cabe. Sylvester looked at Paige. Cabe looked at Walter. Toby looked at Happy. Paige looked at Toby. They all looked at Walter. "I think it would certainly benefit the Greater Good," Happy said finally.

"Agreed," Sylvester said.

Paige nodded.

"Definitely seems like it," Toby said.

"Is it settled, then?" Cabe asked.

"I think so," Paige said.

"When will you leave?" Happy asked.

Walter looked at Cabe. The older man cleared his throat. "Saturday morning."

"Whoa," Sylvester said. "It's Thursday."

"Sooner he goes," Toby said. "Sooner he comes back, I suppose."

"Exactly." Cabe nodded. "And Homeland wants him to get this done before the new Congress is sworn in at the start of January. Funding and all. Never know what's going to happen. All evidence suggests that this will help us immensely without any increase in violence. But…you know politicians. They don't always pay attention to what those of us with a real know how advise them to do. So since we're able to now…Homeland really feels like we should. They'll be pleased when I let them know we can move forward with it." He clapped Walter lightly on the back. "I'll go make the call."

Happy headed to her work station and Toby and Sylvester dispersed to their desks. Walter glanced at Paige. Her arms were folded and she appeared deep in thought. "Paige?"

"Have you thought about how you're going to tell Ralph?"

He sighed. "A little. I was hoping we could talk about that."

Paige nodded. "Five months is a long time."

"Yeah, I know."

"We should probably tell him together." Paige bit her lip. "Do you agree?"

"You know…" Walter always hesitated disagreeing with Paige on things like this. Ralph was her son, and she was more of an expert than he was on the social side of life. But… "I think I should tell him myself. If we come to him together, sit him down, and tell him we have to tell him something he could be afraid that it's something serious."

Paige blinked. "It _is_ serious."

"I mean," Walter said quickly, "I mean, when my parents wanted to let me know Megan had M.S., they told me together. From my experience, I would get very nervous if parents sat me down for a…now I know I'm not Ralph's father but it's…"

"Walter, we're way past that point and you know it."

"Right." He cleared his throat. "How about I pick him up from school, and I'll tell him?"

"That sounds okay. I'll get home early then and make some food. You won't have home cooked meals for a while unless you make them yourself." She wrinkled her nose. "And you can't cook."

"Yes I can. You just don't like how I season things."

"You'll put cinnamon in the coffee even though you hate it, and yet you won't dial down the intensity of your fish sauce for egg rolls."

"When I did dial it down you said the whole dipping sauce was bland."

"Because you use so much of the fish with the regular recipe and then you dial back everything proportionally when you really just need to use less fish."

"That doesn't make it bland, it makes it _light_."

She smirked. "You're impossible."

"Statistically unlikely." Walter grinned. "So what are you going to make tonight?"

"I haven't decided yet. What are you going to say to Ralph?"

* * *

"Homeland wants me to travel around to military bases and other government buildings to increase computer security. It could reduce hacks by approximately fifty percent."

"And you'll be gone a long time." Ralph glanced ahead at the upcoming light, then looked back at Walter. "This wouldn't be a one on one conversation if it was just for a week."

"It's going to be for approximately twenty one weeks."

"Five _months_?" Ralph's eyes grew wide. "That's crazy. The whole world will be protected by your firewalls!"

"It will help a lot of people." Walter put on his blinker and changed lanes. "I won't be able to disclose my location most of the time. But I'll have a special phone that I can communicate on, it's similar to what they give to the President. It can't text or go online, but the calls aren't able to be traced or hacked into, so I won't jeopardize the security of anything I'm doing. I can make personal calls on it. So you and I will be in touch. And when I'm in less sensitive areas, we can Skype."

"That sounds good to me," Ralph said. "You can tell me _some_ things about what you're doing, right?"

"I can tell you everything about the basic mission," Walter said. "At least what I know now, though admittedly I don't know much more as of this moment than I haven't already told you. Most of what I would be telling you in our phone conversations is personal stories."

"Like people who are supposedly the best the base has to offer failing to understand simple coding?"

Walter grinned. "Exactly like that."

Ralph made a fist and pumped it in the air. "Yessss."


	3. Chapter 3

It seemed as if Paige had cooked enough for dinner for a Thanksgiving feast with the entire team. "Ralph," she said when they were finished eating. "Help your mother with the dishes, please."

He walked up to her, speaking in a stage whisper. "But Walter is leaving in a few days. Can't we just wait to do the dishes? I want to play my game with him."

"Ralph," Paige said firmly. "Life has to go on. We are not going to live in a sty. If you help me this will take ten minutes and then you can play your game. Walter, dry, please?"

Ralph rolled his eyes. " _Fine_."

"Don't go too teenager on your mother while I'm gone," Walter said, swatting the boy with the towel. Ralph stepped closer to him, pressing his shoulder against his arm. Walter slid his arm around the boy's shoulders in a side – hug. Paige smiled as she watched them.

The dishes ended up taking more like fifteen minutes, but it wasn't long at all before Walter and Ralph were on the couch, virtual cars flying around the bonus courses, Paige curled up on the adjacent chair reading over Walter's work order.

"Ha _ha_!" Ralph said triumphantly when they finished the last track, dropping the controller in his lap and grinning over at Walter. "I win."

"And how do you know that I didn't let you win?"

"Because you did that grunt thing when I passed you and you only do that when you're displeased. Your posture also indicated you were agitated."

Walter put his controller on the coffee table. "Forget the teenager comment. Please don't _turn into Toby_ while I'm gone."

Ralph raised an eyebrow. "I mean, I love the guy but also… _never_." Walter chuckled as the boy wrinkled his nose.

"Do I really have to go to bed now?" Ralph asked his mother.

"You have an early college class tomorrow," Paige said. "You can stay up as late as you want tomorrow since it's not a school night."

"O – _kay_." Ralph sighed. "Good night, Walter."

Walter was surprised – but only a little bit – when the boy cuddled up to him, sliding his arms around his torso. "Night, buddy," he said, hugging him back.

"Mom." Ralph went to the chair. "Good night."

"Good night!" Paige stood up, hugging her son and kissing the top of his head. "Have a good sleep."

Walter rose, walking with Ralph to the door of his bedroom. "Ralph." The boy turned to look at him. "I mean it," he cautioned, "about giving your mom a hard time. I know you and I…we work the same way, and you've gotten used to me being around here. If you're having any problems adjusting, I need you to talk to Toby or Allie. Don't take it out on your mom."

Ralph nodded. "I won't."

"Good boy."

Ralph smiled and entered his bedroom, flicking the light off as Walter drew the door closed. He walked back out into the living room. Paige was standing facing the large window, her back to him. Her arms were folded and he could see his work orders tucked under her arm, as if she'd just been reading them, even though he knew she'd done so earlier. "We'll have to make a copy of that for you, so you'll at least kind of know what I'll be up to." When Paige didn't respond, he walked up behind her. "You hear me?"

She whirled around to look at him, her eyes damp and her face contorting as she spoke, the look on her face and broken tone of voice alarming him. "Walter I just…"

"Hey, hey, hey!" Walter said, reaching out and putting his hands on her arms. Her head was dropped to her chest, and he tilted his head to try and see her face. "Paige."

She lifted her head, her eyes threatening to spill over. "Hey," He said, lifting a hand to brush a tear from her cheek. "Talk to me."

"Five months is such a long time," she managed before another tear began to journey down her cheek. She put a hand over her mouth to compose herself, dropping the orders onto the table, then took a deep breath, her words coming in a rush. "I know you have to go and it's not fair of me to be like this but the idea of not having you with me for five months just makes me want to…" She trailed off, blinking rapidly, and Walter stepped closer, sliding his arms around her. "Walter," she said quietly, not meeting his eyes. "I'm going to miss you so much."

"I'll miss you too," he said, placing a hand on the back of her head as she rested it on his shoulder. "But like I told Ralph, we'll still be in touch, you'll know where I am as much as you can, and I'll be home on December thirtieth. That's before the year ends."

"Christmas," she said, her voice cracking again. "You won't be with us on Christmas." She leaned back to look at him. " _Walter_." Her face crumpled again. "And Ralph's birthday…"

"I know." She couldn't possibly think that this hadn't crossed his mind. "But you heard Cabe. We have to do this now."

"I know. I understand." She sighed. "I'm just..." She bit her lip.

"Talk to me. Please."

She sighed again. "Fine. I'm scared."

Walter looked into her eyes. "The job is safe…that's not it, is it?" He looked over at the couch. "Let's sit."

She nodded. When they were settled on the couch, angled toward each other with knees touching, Walter took her hand. "I want to say I know what's upsetting you." A wave of guilt swept over him. She was his girlfriend. She'd been his girlfriend for nearly a year. And yet… "I'm sorry, but I need you to tell me."

"Walter." She looked down at their hands. "Two times. Twice before now I've had the person I was seeing leave for a job. And in both cases, we didn't break up then. In both cases, we expected to be together when they came back."

A fresh wave of guilt hit Walter. He should have realized this. Paige used to believe that Drew was the love of her life. And getting over him, well, she'd said before that that was the hardest thing she'd ever had to do. Then Tim Armstrong had done the same thing. They hadn't been dating as long, she never loved him and they certainly had no child together, but the circumstances were similar enough that Walter internally kicked himself for not recognizing that Paige would think about both those exes in a situation like this.

"Paige…" He shook his head. "I'm not Drew. Or Tim." He rubbed the top of her hand with his thumb. "We're not going to end over this. I _love_ you. And Ralph."

She sighed. "So did Drew, Walter. When we went to L.A. and he stayed behind, he fully intended to join us. But situations change. Feelings change. And Drew went from loving me to not even thinking about me." She shook her head. "Walter, when you say this isn't going to end us, I completely believe that you mean it. But you can't predict the future. No one can."

Walter's heart ached. He wanted to tell her that there was no way. That Drew had chosen his job over her but Walter already had his dream job and if he was going to fall out of love with her because of passion for that job he probably just wouldn't have fallen in love with her in the first place. He wanted to remind her that she had admitted herself, on many occasions, that she and Tim wouldn't have lasted much longer even had he stayed in California. He wanted to tell her that if he hadn't fallen out of love with her when she flaunted another relationship in his face and kept secrets from him and dealt with her own conflicting emotions and insecurities by insulting and belittling him, distance certainly wasn't going to be what did it. He'd _tried_ , for a while, during the worst months, to stop caring about her so damn much, but even when she was at her worst, even when she was actively ignoring him, her heart would always shine right through, or she'd show a vulnerability that indicated that she wasn't as sure of everything as she wanted everyone to believe. He'd absolutely, without a doubt, seen Paige Dineen at her worst. And he'd long since realized that none of that mattered.

But he still wasn't great with verbalizing his thoughts and he still said the wrong thing from time to time. "I know…I know I can't predict the future. But…I do run risk analysis, and I know indicators of when an experiment will succeed or fail, and…" he shook his head. "Maybe I'm just naïve, but I don't see things going wrong with us." He placed a hand along the side of her face. "You're my whole world."

She closed her eyes, pushing her cheek against his hand. "I just hear these things and wonder if in a few months I'm going to be thinking of them as I cry into a pillow."

"You won't."

Paige sighed, tucking her legs up beneath her and grabbing a pillow from the other end of the couch. Walter shifted his weight as she placed the pillow over his legs and stretched out on the couch, lying on her back with her head his lap. He reached for the hand that was resting on her stomach and slid the fingers on his other one into her hair. She fell silent. Walter bit his lip. "Unless…you…feel that you might…find that being separated from me…"

"No." She shook her head. When she spoke again, her voice was shaky. "Walter, I want to spend the rest of my life with you. That's _why_ I'm so scared. I want to…to get a house with you and marry you and maybe even have another baby, I don't know, I just know that our pasts were full of uncertainty and frustration, but the past is the past. I know I want the future to include you. All of it. Every moment of future that I have."

"I want that too," he murmured, stroking her hair. "Everything you just said."

"But you're not worried?"

Paige looked as if she couldn't fathom the possibility that he wanted to marry her and yet wasn't afraid that distance would change from temporary to forever. But he hadn't had a history of this like she did. And…

"Megan told me once that distance was hard. When we moved to the States, she….she lost a lot of friends. But she stayed in touch with a few. The ones that really, really mattered. And…and if we're going to be together f – forever, then…then we should be able to survive this. So I guess I'm not worried because despite being a genius, _we_ are the thing I'm the most certain of."

He felt pressure as she squeezed his hand, and then she sat up. "I just love you so much," she whispered.

 _Just don't forget that I love you just as much._ He kissed her tenderly. "We're going to make it," he said, finding a hand again and slowly tangling his fingers with hers.

She rested her forehead against hers. "Can we go to bed?" She whispered, looking half desperate, half shy. "I just really need you tonight."

Walter lifted his head and kissed her square on the forehead. "Let's go."


	4. Chapter 4

Walter had woken up at four in the morning almost uncomfortably warm.

They’d let Ralph stay up until nearly midnight, hanging out as a family for what would be the last time in a while.  Then they’d gone to bed, and even though they knew they had to be up in just a few hours, they made love.  She’d cuddled up close to him afterward and neither of them had had trouble falling asleep, both exhausted from the long day.  But with her naked body against his and the blankets pulled up around them, he was surprised he’d _stayed_ asleep long enough to wake up to his alarm.

By the time they’d dressed and grabbed the luggage he’d packed the night before (well, she helped him pack; she’d been so worried he’d forget something), Ralph was up and looking as if he wasn’t running on four hours of sleep.

His flight was at nine, but they had to go to the garage and get his computer equipment before they headed to the airport.  That was something else new for him.  They always were flown to jobs.  He couldn’t remember the last time he was on a commercial jet.  But it had to be this way so no one would be alerted to his arrival.

Walter was surprised to see lights on in the garage when they pulled in.  “Did Sylvester fall asleep here again?” He wondered aloud.

“Who knows,” Paige said, in a way that made it seem like she was trying to sound as interested as him.  He gave her an odd look.

When they entered the garage, the first thing Walter saw was Happy and Toby turning to face him.  Sylvester and Cabe, already facing that way, lifted hands in greeting.

The three of them stopped, staring at the others. I’m confused,” Walter said, frowning.  “It is five in the morning.”

“Confused?” Toby exclaimed.  “Our friend is leaving us for five months and you don’t think we’d be here to say goodbye?”

“Walter,” Paige said, raising her eyebrows in warning, just in case he wasn’t going to be gracious. 

Walter’s lower lip curled under slightly, and he smiled.  She’d known about this.  She’d known they were all going to be there.  “That means...that means a lot, guys.”

“Come here, brother,” Sylvester said, stepping forward from the group and wrapping him up in a bear hug.  “Get it?” He said in Walter’s ear.  “Brother can be used as an affectionate term and you and I are actually brothers.”

“Yeah.  Yeah, I got it,” Walter said, awkwardly hugging him back.

“We know you have to get your gear and get to the airport,” Cabe said.  “We just wanted to send you off, kid.”

Walter smiled.  “You uh, you all didn’t have to do that.”

“We know,” Happy said.  “But we still kinda like you, Walt.”

“I’ll get your stuff,” Paige said.  “Ralph will make sure that I have everything.  Say your goodbyes.”

“This...this feels so final,” he said after a moment.  “Guys, I’m coming back.  And I’ll be in touch while I’m away.”

“Good.”  Happy folded her arms and gave a nod.  Toby slid an arm around her waist.  Even Walter could tell she was trying to hold back emotion.  “You’d better take care of yourself.”

“I will.  This isn’t a dangerous job, guys.  I’ll be fine.”

Happy glanced at Toby.  He rubbed her hip.

“Come over here, kid,” Cabe said, giving Walter an affectionate smile.  Cabe was one of the first people Walter was ever comfortable hugging.  “I’m proud of you,” he said in a low voice.  “Are Paige and Ralph okay?”

Walter sighed.  “I suppose.”

“I’ll keep an eye on them.”

“Are you going to tell me to make sure I don’t let her down?”

“No.”  Cabe smiled.  “I know you won’t.”

* * *

Walter remembered that when Paige had taken Tim to the airport, his flight had gotten delayed.  This time, there was no such luck.  They sat on a bench next to the big screen, just outside of TSA, and he knew that she and Ralph were also silently hoping that maybe...

But no.  The flight kept blinking “on time.”

And if he didn’t get moving, he was going to be running to the gate.  Homeland wouldn’t like that much.

He sighed reluctantly.  “I do have to go now.”

“Yeah.”  Paige nodded, not releasing her grip on his hand.  “Yeah, I know.”

Walter slowly got to his feet, Paige and Ralph following.  “I’ll call as soon as I’m able.  I should at least be permitted to let you know when I land.”

“Please.”

“Come here, buddy,” Walter said, opening his arms in Ralph’s direction.  The boy stepped into them, burying his head against Walter’s front and wrapping his arms tightly around him.  “You take care of your mom, okay?” He said in a low voice.  “You’re good at that.”

He felt the boy nod against him.

Paige looked like she was going to be sick when he turned to her, and when she took in an audible breath, it sounded painful.  “You going to be okay?” He asked quietly, so much so that he wasn’t even sure Ralph would be able to hear.

She licked her lower lip.  “I feel like I’m breathing underwater.”

Walter pulled her close, his lips pressing against her ear.  Paige buried her head into his neck, starting to cry.  Walter hated that.  He was sure what was going through her mind:  _don’t cry in front of Ralph never cry in front of Ralph dammit you’re crying in front of Ralph._

The tips of her fingers pressed hard into his back.  “Shhhh,” Walter soothed, rocking her gently.  He considered dropping to the floor and asking her to marry him, showing her in yet another way that he _was_ going to come back to her.  And they’d be together.  Forever.  But he decided against it.  She’d probably not take it the way that he intended.  It might just make her more scared that everything she wanted was right in front of her and yet history told her it was all going to end.  She was already half convinced that this would all end up feeling like he’d dangled a carrot, just like Drew had so long ago.

“The people who have made you feel this way are idiots,” Walter said.  “And I’m a genius, remember?”  He smiled slightly when he felt her chuckle.  He pulled back, reaching up and tucking her hair behind her ear, then kissed her tenderly, trying to express five months of love to her all at once.  She kissed him back fiercely.

He _really_ had to go through security.

But this had to be the most emotional sendoff she’d ever had.  She’d been with Drew for three years and had a child with him when she’d gone to Los Angeles.  She was only expected to be apart from him for seven weeks and she had no history that made her doubt that that’s exactly what would happen.  And when she’d said goodbye to Tim, they’d only been dating three months.  She hadn’t been in love with him.  Standing here with Walter, she had two failed distance relationships behind her.  And he knew she loved him as much as she could love anyone.

He wished there was something he could say.  Something simple and obvious that would completely assuage her fears.  He wished it was that simple.

Their lips parted, and he rested his forehead against hers.  “I _love_ you,” he said.

“I love you, too.”

Ralph stepped closer to them, and Walter and Paige pulled him into the hug.  They stood there, almost completely still, for a couple of seconds, then Paige sighed.  “I know.  You have to go.”

“Yeah.” 

They separated.  Walter picked up one of his bags and Paige picked up the other and handed it to him.  “Stay safe,” she said. 

“I will.”

“Okay.”  She nodded.  “I’ll see you soon.”

“Yeah.”  He bit his lip, nodding, then turned toward TSA.  When he reached the line, he looked back.

Ralph stood with his back up against Paige, and her hands were resting on his shoulders as they both watched him.  Walter wanted to yell across the room that he loved them.  Instead, he took a page from Toby’s book and blew them a kiss.


	5. Chapter 5

Paige entered the garage with a purposeful stride. Walter was...somewhere across an ocean. He'd only been gone two days, and she didn't expect to know an exact location for a few more. But what she _did_ know was where she was. And she had her job to do. She came to a stop almost immediately, looking around in surprise.

Sylvester was at his desk reading a comic book. Happy and Toby were sitting on the bottom step chatting. "Why are we just sitting around?" Paige asked. She clapped her hands together. "It's Monday! Start of a new week! Let's get working, guys! We have people to save!"

"Kinda hard when there aren't any people that need our saving at the moment," Happy said with raised eyebrows.

"Yeeeeah," Sylvester said. "Any cases would come from Cabe to you right now. Unless you brought us something..."

"Well, I'm sure we can find something to do," Paige said, walking over to her desk and moving a few books around.

"Is that an example of what we should be doing?" Sylvester asked. "Because I kinda like how my desk is arranged already."

"Oooh!" Toby jumped up. "It's been a while since we've played Move Sylvester's Stuff Around!"

"Really?" Sylvester said, looking unamused.

"Come on, it'll be fun," Toby said. "Go in the kitchen and get a bowl of grapes."

"Wait. Why?"

"So we can move your stuff around."

Sylvester rolled his eyes, pushing back his chair.

"Alrighty roo," Toby said, rubbing his hands together. He stopped. "I don't think I'm going to say that again. But anyway, what should we do to him?"

"What are you guys up to?"

They jumped, turning toward the entrance to see Cabe and Allie. "I asked you a question," Cabe said.

"We're messing with Sly," Happy said.

"In what way?" Allie asked, looking confused.

"We make his desk look slightly different and then he has to tell us what the differences are. Like in those puzzle books or newspapers, when they have two drawings and you have to spot the differences," Toby explained. "But this is like a 3D version."

"Does...Sly know you're doing this?" Allie asked.

"Oh yes," Paige said. "He's getting grapes."

Allie's eyes shifted from the group to Cabe. He shrugged. "Don't ask me the question your eyes want to, because I have _no_ idea."

Toby was putting the papers on Sylvester's desk in a different stacked order. "This might get him."

"It's never gotten him before," Happy pointed out.

"Well, we have to do more obvious things too. So maybe he'll miss the harder ones, _or_ be so focused on the harder ones he'll miss something easy. You know, they do that in equestrian competitions. They'll put a really tricky jump, coming out of a really tricky turn, as the second to last obstacle on the course. Once horse and rider get over that one, there's this collective sigh of relief. The rider has been worrying about that one. And now they're over it. And the last fence is simple, in comparison. But a lot of the time, they'll knock a rail down on that one, because they relax too much. So if we do a lot of really tricky changes for Sylvester here, he might miss something such as..." Toby grabbed his water bottle from his desk, ran back over, and lifted up Sylvester's. Placing his down on the desk, he lifted it back up, the condensation creating a water ring. He put Sylvester's bottle back down, exactly over the ring. "He he he."

"He's gonna notice that," Happy said.

"No he won't."

"A cooked meal says he doesn't."

"Are you encouraging me to bet?"

"Not with money." Happy extended her hand, raising her eyebrows.

"Alright. You're on."

"You know what's a good trick?" Allie said. "You see his mug full of pencils? If you..."

"He can tell when one is shorter than the other," Paige said. "We've tried."

"But," Allie said, raising a finger. "What if we break _all_ of the tips? They'd still be the same height. Just a few millimeters shorter."

There was silence in the garage as all of them stared at Allie. Then Toby cleared his throat. "That could work."

"Can I come back yet?" Called Sylvester.

"No!" They chorused.

* * *

"Alright," Sylvester said, putting his hands on his hips and surveying the desk. "Well, first of all, nice try with the water ring."

"Ooooh," Happy nudged Toby triumphantly. "Sucks to suck!"

"My jumbo eraser is a quarter inch to the left," Sylvester said. "Someone tried to draw a smiley face on the desk with their finger right here, but since there isn't a speck of dust, you just left an oily finger mark instead. My guess is that was either Happy or Paige..." he leaned down and sniffed the desk. "That's Paige's lotion."

Paige folded her arms. "Dammit."

"My papers are..." Sylvester shuffled through them. "Completely out of order, thank you, and..." his eyes shifted. Reaching out, he put his hands on the pencil erasers, pushing down. Then he moved on. Allie's eyebrows shot up. "My Super Fun Guy and Zany Zoe were switched..." He stopped, frowned, then reached for the pencils again, pulling one out. "A ha! You broke all the tips!"

"Almost had him, Jones," Cabe said with an amused smile.

Sylvester's eyes widened. "That was _you_?"

Allie looked away and whistled.

"Your ideas are a lot better than your innocent act," Happy commented.

"Well, that's everything, guys," Sylvester said. "I am still perfect at this game."

"Alright, well, I've got a good track record at the next one," Toby said, picking up the bowl of grapes.

"Don't you guys have better things to do?" Cabe asked.

"Do you have a case for us?" Toby asked pointedly. He handed the bowl of grapes to Paige. "Go stand over there and throw these at me. One at a time."

"Why," Sylvester said, "so you can catch them in your mouth?"

Toby snapped his fingers. "Precisely." He ran back a few steps, then leaned over and clapped his hands together. "Come on, Paige, throw!"

"What's up with him?" Paige asked Happy.

The mechanic shook her head slowly. "I don't..." trailing off, Happy glanced at Paige, then cleared her throat. "No. I don't know."

" _Paige_." Toby clapped his hands. "Toss a grape, toss a grape!"

"Allie and I are going up to the roof," Cabe said. "I want to show her something."

"Ew," Sylvester said.

"I want to show her how many recognizable buildings we can see," Cabe said. "So you weirdos don't set anything on fire or make anything explode while we're up there. You hear?"

"Blah blah blah throw the grape, Paige."

Paige rolled her eyes and tossed one at him underhand. Toby jumped to the side and caught it in his mouth, grinning triumphantly.


	6. Chapter 6

Traffic was light on the way home from work, and Paige was glad of that.

The day had been fun. As much as she'd wanted a case, she'd really just been looking for anything to keep her mind occupied. It had been a while since the team had really just gotten to goof off for an entire day, just enjoying each other's company, and it'd been oddly fun to have Allie involved. She seemed to enjoy hanging out with them, too – Toby's impromptu standup comedy routine had Cabe's girlfriend howling. Cabe, on the other hand, hadn't seemed pleased at the reminder that Allie was closer to some of their ages than his.

Paige turned on the radio and merged lanes. Cabe had asked her how she was doing. _Fine_ , she'd responded. It was the truth. She was fine. Fine wasn't good. But fine was okay. And really, could she really expect herself to be any better?

If not for what Drew had done, losing Tim to distance wouldn't have hurt. Realistically, she knew the likelihood of her and Tim lasting another eight months had been extremely low even if he had remained in the United States. But when she and Tim had decided to end things, she already had Drew behind her. The happy years, followed by months upon months of a belief that he'd come home to her and Ralph slowly running dry. The period of grieving. The days she struggled to even get out of bed. The times she wondered what _she_ had done, to lose the love of her life. Following all of that, losing Tim made a part of her wonder why she was never enough. Why as soon as she wasn't physically near a person, their feelings for her faded. Why she was never worth time apart.

She knew that wasn't entirely fair. Tim hadn't broken her heart like Drew had, or even at all. Skyping Tim had, if she was honest with herself, been more of a chore, an obligation, in the last few weeks. And even though she hadn't come to terms with it then, she was in love with Walter the entire time she and Tim were seeing each other. But that didn't change the _way_ their relationship had ended.

She turned the volume up.

" _...and wonders if her love is strong enough to make him stay. She's answered by the tail lights, shining through the window pane."_

Paige shut the radio off with so much force she chipped a nail.

Pulling over to the side of the road, she pulled out her phone and dialed the special number. One, two, three, four rings before the familiar voice said, "Walter O'Brien."

"Hey."

"Paige." His tone changed from professional to warm. "How are you, Love?"

"Okay. Is...is it late? Where you are?"

"Oh yes. Very."

"Oh." She pulled a knee up to her chest. "I'm sorry."

"No," Walter said. "Don't apologize. It's good to hear your voice."

"You too." She sighed. "How are you? Do you have good accommodations?"

"Adequate. My room is small but I do not have to share. Cabe says that won't be the case in every location."

"That's good."

"Did you see the shirt I left in your drawer?"

The plaid button up. It was one of his favorite shirts. All the rest of his clothes had been washed before leaving, but that one he'd saved for her. "It smells like you."

"Mmmm."

Ahead of her, the light turned green. A car blared its horn at the minivan in the front taking a few seconds to get moving.

"Paige?" Walter said, sounding confused. "Where are you?"

"I'm in the car."

"What's the matter?"

She shifted her weight. "Nothing."

"Did your car break down? Is Happy on her way?"

"No. Nothing is wrong with the car, I..." Paige wiped her eyes. "I just miss you."

"I miss you, too. Do you want to Skype on Friday? That's a travel day for me. So when I get to where I'm going, I won't have any engagements until the next morning."

"Yeah." Paige nodded as she spoke, even though he couldn't see her. "Yeah. That sounds nice. I'd really like that."

"It'll be nice to see you. And Ralph."

Paige wondered if it _really_ counted as seeing them when they were all thousands of miles apart. She stared at her chipped nail. "Yeah."

"Paige, I don't like that you're on the side of the road."

"I'm in my car. It's locked. And this isn't a bad area."

"Yes, but if something _were_ to happen, I'm not close by."

Paige felt guilty for being glad for the worry in his voice. "I'm almost home. Try not to worry about me too much."

"That is easier said than done, you know."

"Yeah. I know. And I'd be lying if I said I wasn't worried about you, too." Paige licked her lower lip and sighed. "Well, uh...you should probably go to sleep. Long day tomorrow."

"Busy. Most certainly busy."

"Okay. Thanks for talking to me."

"I love you."

She smiled. "I love you, too."

She pressed the red phone button, and Walter's contact photo vanished.

There was a tapping at the driver's window, and Paige jumped in alarm as she looked, wide eyed, toward the source of the sound. The person jumped back, holding their hands up. "Sorry!"

Paige squinted. "Linda?"

"Hey, Paige," she said, looking sheepish. "I hate to have to ask, but...could I bother you for a ride?"


	7. Chapter 7

"So...why are you out here by yourself?" Paige asked. "Did you have car trouble, or..."

"No." Linda shifted awkwardly. "Bad date."

Paige looked at her with concern. "Are you okay, do...do we need to go to the police? Or urgent care?"

She shook her head. "Not that kind of bad date. Or at least, I left before it might have turned into that kind of bad date." She wrung her hands, staring down at them.

"Linda...are you sure you're okay?"

"Yeah." She looked up at Paige, nodding. "Yeah, I'm fine. I swear. I just...he picked me up for our date. So I didn't have any transportation. Is it okay if I take my shoes off?"

She was wearing heels. "Yeah," Paige said. "How...how long have you been walking?"

"I don't know. A couple of miles, maybe."

"At night? By yourself?" Paige asked, eyes wide with surprise. "And...in those shoes?"

"Figured with the way my luck has been going, if I took them off I'd step on a rusty nail and get tetanus. Or on a bat and get rabies." Linda shrugged. "I'll be paying for that decision with these blisters. My feet are rubbed raw."

"There's a drug store up here," Paige said. "We're going to stop and I'm going to get you something for that."

"You don't have to do that. Just take me home, if you could. I'll pay you for gas and your time."

"No, you don't have to do that," Paige said. "Friends help out friends."

A corner of Linda's mouth turned up slightly. Paige was expecting her to ask if that meant that the two of them were friends, but the other woman stayed quiet. Paige wondered if she didn't ask because she knew there'd never been anything between them that could have been classified as a friendship. After Team Scorpion had saved her life, Paige had only spoken to her a handful of times in the couple of weeks that Linda and Walter were going on dates. They were friend _ly_ , but nothing to classify them as actually friends.

"So uh, other than..." Paige cleared her throat. "How have you been?" She put the car into drive and pulled back out onto the street.

Linda shrugged. "You know, just taking it day by day. Work's going well. How about you?"

"I'm alright."

"Team Scorpion still saving the world on a daily basis?"

Paige chuckled. "Well, we're doing our best."

"How is Walter?"

Paige tapped her fingers against the steering wheel. "He's doing well. He's away all fall on a job."

"Wow. All fall, by himself?" Linda raised her eyebrows. "That's got to be lonely."

"Yeah, I miss him a lot," Paige admitted. "And it's only been a couple of days. But..." she trailed off when she realized that Linda had meant _Walter_ was probably lonely.

_What the Hell, Dineen._

"I'm sure you do," Linda said. She gave Paige a side – eye. "You guys...are together, right? I mean, I'm just going off of you saying you miss him."

Paige nodded. "Yes. Yes, we are."

"Good." Linda nodded. "He deserves to be happy. Not," she added quickly, "I'm not saying you don't, I...I just...I just mean...well, I knew Walter better than I knew you."

"No, I knew what you meant." Paige watched the light ahead, foot preparing to break should it turn yellow. It didn't. "I hope, I certainly hope he's happy now."

She wondered if she'd started blabbing to Linda about missing Walter because she was desperate to confide in a third party – any third party. _Linda doesn't want to hear about your problems._

"Well," Linda said slowly, "I don't want to ask for details because it isn't my business, but I hope he is. And you, too."

Paige bit her lip and nodded. "Thanks."

"But if you did want to talk about it..."

"I've just had two relationships end over distance," Paige said. _Why are you telling her this?_ "So it's in the back of my mind."

Linda nodded, looking thoughtful. "Patterns. They can be a bitch. I see them all the time in the work I do. Turn here."

Paige guided the car down the road she pointed out. "So I don't know. We'll see how it goes. He'll be back just after Christmas."

"Where is this job he's on?"

"I don't know. He's moving around. He can't tell me where he is."

"Wow. Sounds...wow."

"Yeah, it's fun."

"I'm 1412."

"Okay." Paige watched the numbers climb and turned into 1412. "What door?"

"This end."

Paige parked in front of it. "Are you sure you don't need to go anywhere else?"

"Yeah. I'm fine."

"But he knows where you live."

"He's pissed at me. He won't be coming around, and if he does, my neighbor is a police officer. Don't worry about me." Linda bit her lip. "I really, really appreciate this, Paige. I know we don't know each other. And I...I dated your boyfriend. And all that."

"Women don't leave other women vulnerable on the street," Paige said. "We shouldn't, anyway."

Linda smiled. "I owe you. Do you want my number? You can call me if you ever want to talk. I...I may be awkward but I can listen. I actually like listening, because it means I'm not talking. And I can't say something awkward or stupid if I'm not talking."

Paige handed Linda her phone. "Text me your number."

Linda did, then handed the phone back. "Again. Thank you so much for giving me a ride."

"Anytime. Just don't scare me again."

Linda laughed. "I'll do my best."

Paige waited in the car until the other woman had gotten inside, then turned for home. It occurred to her that she hadn't thanked Linda for listening before she'd gotten out of the car. She propped her phone up on the steering wheel, then hesitated. She didn't want to make Linda think that she was going to be taking advantage of her offer to listen. She made a note to text her the thank you in the morning, then tossed the phone in the passenger seat.

Linda only lived about ten minutes from the Dineen condo, but by the time Paige pulled into her spot, she felt like she'd been driving for hours. She yawned, tossing everything she had to carry in her purse before exiting the car and heading up to her door.

Ralph was sitting on the couch, one of his video games up on the television. "Hey, baby," Paige said in greeting as she dropped her purse on the counter. "Why are you still up? It's a school night."

The game paused, and Ralph peered over the back of the couch. "It's seven – thirty."

Paige stopped, frowned, and reached for her purse, rummaging for her phone and looking at the display. "Oh."

Ralph raised his eyebrows in amusement.

"Did you eat?" Paige asked.

He nodded. "The leftover pasta. There's enough for you, though."

"Okay. Is that your new game?"

"No. It's the one..." Ralph trailed off, and he turned back toward the television.

 _It's the one you played with Walter that first night. Back before almost everything._ Paige walked slowly around the couch and sat next to him. "Think you can teach me?"

The corner of Ralph's mouth turned up into a crooked smile. "I'm a genius, so...if anyone can manage that..."

"Shut up," Paige said, grabbing one of the decorative pillows and lightly smacking her son's shoulder with it. Ralph grinned and handed her a controller.

* * *

"Hey! Husband!"

Toby jumped, looking up guiltily at Happy's tone. His expression smoothed over almost annoyingly fast. "Yes, my dove?"

"I've been telling you to come to bed."

"I will." He tapped his pen against the coffee table. "As soon as I come up with enough stuff to fill eight hours tomorrow."

"Toby." Happy crossed the room and sat down on the couch beside him. "I know what you're doing. And it's sweet. But there's no way you can come up with eight hundred and fifty plus hours of busy work and games to keep Paige's mind off of the distance when we're at the garage."

Toby sat back and looked at her. "We both know what it's like to be repeatedly let down. We know how much it hurts and how scared it can make us." He shook his head slowly. "I know I can't keep Paige's mind off of missing Walter the entire time we're at work. But..." He sighed. "I can't help but feel as if I have to try."

"Because this is one of your strong suits. Understanding why people feel the way they do." Happy leaned forward and rested her chin on his shoulder.

"Uh huh." Toby put a hand on her knee. "It's a blessing and a curse."

"Well, try not to be up too late. If we do have a case, we have to do it sans Walter. The rest of us have to be cognitively one hundred percent."

"I know. Let me fill up this page and then I'll be in there."

Happy smiled, lifting her head and kissing him on the cheek. "Okay."


	8. Chapter 8

When the call connected, Walter was surprised to not see Paige, but who he _did_ see brought the same affectionate smile to his face. "Hey, buddy."

"Mom said I could talk first today. My fall semester at college has started."

"I thought that was today," Walter said. He could hear dishes clinking in the background. It sounded like they'd just finished up dinner. "How do your professors seem?"

"Okay. I'm definitely inherently smarter than one of them. But he's already learned the material so I guess he'll do to teach it to me."

Walter chuckled. "You'll do great. You always do."

Ralph smiled, and Walter smiled back. He loved hearing Ralph talk about his classes. The boy always lit up when he was talking about learning, even when he was smarter than the people teaching him. He just liked _information_. Walter could certainly relate.

"How was your job today?" Ralph asked.

"It's okay. This guy Lister, he actually seems to know what he's talking about. He really drills it into everyone They call him The Blister."

Ralph rolled his eyes. "That's a lame name. Especially if he's competent."

"He is. But you know how people will treat those of us that know our stuff."

"Yeah."

He and Ralph chatted for a few more minutes, then Paige appeared, standing behind Ralph and bending, wrapping her arms around the boy's shoulders as she smiled into the camera. "Hey, Love."

"Hey." Walter's heart tried to leap at the sight of the two of them and ache from missing them at the same time, resulting in his chest feeling strange. He grunted. "How are you?"

"I'm good," Paige said. "Work is good. Easy cases." She nodded her head. "Ralphie and I are spending a lot of time together, and we miss you, but everything is good."

"Good."

"I'm going to leave you two alone," Ralph said, his hands coming up to squeeze his mother's arms before he moved out of them. "When are you going to Skype us again?"

"How about tomorrow? I'm going to be settling into a new location again."

Ralph and Paige both smiled. The boy nodded. "Sounds good."

"Good night, buddy."

"Good night, Walter."

Ralph lingered, for just a moment, then turned and left the frame. Walter heard his bedroom door open and close.

"How much of that was a brave face?" Walter asked.

Paige sank down into the chair and sighed. "I mean, we are good. I told you he's been teaching me his game, and Toby has oddly come up with a lot of goofy things to do at the garage when we're not working."

"Hmmm. He seem okay to you? I wonder if he's trying to distract himself from gambling."

Paige shrugged. "I don't know. He doesn't seem to be dealing with anything like that."

"Happy would probably pick up on it if he was."

"Agreed." Paige bit her lip. "We really miss you, Walter."

"I miss you too. Both of you."

She fell silent. Walter knew that look on her face. She only let it show when she was too tired to hide it. He wished he could hold her. He wished he wasn't the only one who could teach this damn software. He wished he could have just done it from Los Angeles. He'd been separated from her before – for longer periods than this. But they hadn't been together then, and their longest period of separation was after his car accident. He'd been embarrassed. He hadn't wanted any of them to see him. And he wasn't in love with her then – at least not near what he was now. He'd missed her that summer. That feeling felt like nothing compared to this. "Paige..."

She tipped her head slightly to the side. "Yeah?"

"I'm glad you and Ralph get to spend that time together. I know you don't get that very much when I'm around."

"No." She shook her head. "I mean...I mean I love spending time with him. But we're a family of three, Walter. I love when I get to spend an afternoon with just me and him but so much time without you...we both just...god, I'm a terrible mother."

"No, you're not," Walter said. "Because you wouldn't pick me over him. Wanting both of us close doesn't mean you're a bad parent. You're the most incredible parent I've ever seen." He wet his lips. "It's...it's one of the things I love so much about you. When I see you with him, Paige, it..." he shook his head. "It's like, everything I could possibly want. Right there in front of me."

She smiled. He could see a tinge of pink in her cheeks. "Well...we're almost one month down."

"Yep. Ralph's semester has started. You always say those fly by, right? And once it's over, I'll be almost home."

She nodded. "Yeah."

"So tell me about these easy cases."

Paige launched into them in so much detail Walter wondered if she'd put all this effort into remembering because she knew he would want to know what they were doing or if she'd thrown herself into the work so hard to take her mind off of their situation that it just stuck in her head. But as she explained, Walter almost felt as if he'd been there.

"So Ralph is the reason that one didn't end up going bad," he said when she finished speaking about their most recent one.

"Yep," she said. "That virus could have been released into all west region banking computers in the country, but he stopped it in time. He really is a little you."

Walter smiled. "At least he can't develop my cleft chin."

"I love your butt chin."

"And I told you I don't love when you call it that."

"Do you prefer face ass?" She was smirking. Walter grinned and rolled his eyes.

"Well, I'd better go," Paige said reluctantly mere minutes later. "It's well after midnight here, and work..."

Walter realized that they'd been chatting for over two hours. "Yeah. Get some sleep."

"Talk to you tomorrow?"

Walter nodded. "Yeah. Definitely."

She smiled. "Okay. Good. I look forward to it."

"I love you."

"I love you too, Walter."

The video disconnected, and he was left staring at the profile picture on the account - him, her, and Ralph sitting on a blanket at Zuma beach. Paige's feet were off the towel, buried in the sand. He and Ralph had sand clinging to their pants, and Paige was showing a hint of a sunburn on her nose and cheeks - she was so good at making sure "her boys" had sunscreen on that she'd forgotten herself that day. Ralph was leaning back against their bent legs, and he and Paige had their arms around each other. Paige had a hand on Ralph's shoulder. That had been a good day. A really, really good day.

Walter knew he needed to get ready for that day's lectures. But he wanted to stare at that photo a little while longer.


	9. Chapter 9

" _Hey, Paige."_

" _Hey." Paige took in a breath. "I know it's been a couple of weeks since we talked...I've been...well, there was..." she cleared her throat. "Do you want to get lunch sometime? I'll buy."_

" _Oh, sure!" Linda's voice sounded genuinely pleased. "That sounds great. When were you thinking?"_

" _Maybe on Monday afternoon?" Paige suggested. "If you're free. Walter and I usually take a long lunch break on Mondays, but...well." As soon as she said that, she wondered why she gave that detail. Why would Linda want to be her cheap replacement for the person she missed so much?_

" _As long as all I have to do with you is eat lunch," Linda said, and Paige smiled when she realized she was making a joke. "Yes," Paige said with a little laugh. "You don't have to take me home afterward."_

"Sorry I'm late!" Linda said as she rushed up to the booth. "Traffic was absolutely – "

"Horrible!" Paige said in agreement, nodding. "I know, I was stuck in it too." She gestured to the two glasses of water on the table. "Left one is yours."

"Thanks. So you've...you haven't been here long?"

"Just about five minutes."

"Oh good," she said. "I was kinda worrying that my joke on the phone the other day might have weirded you out or something. And then I felt really awkward and bad and almost cancelled and then I thought that maybe you would think that _you'd_ somehow weirded _me_ out and..."

The woman was the strangest combination of Walter and Sylvester. Paige held up a hand. "Linda!" She gave her a warm smile. "None of that. I swear."

"Oh good." Linda cringed. "I'm sorry. I get awkward."

"I live with awkward. I work with awkward. I can't even tell what's awkward nine times out of ten at this point so just try to keep that in mind."

Linda laughed. "Okay."

"How's...did your date ever try to contact you?"

"He sent me this really long Facebook message ranting about what a bitch I am, and then like ten minutes later, he messaged me a picture of his genitals."

"Oh." Paige wrinkled her nose as she reached for her water glass.. "Those guys are always great fun."

"Tell me about it." Linda shrugged. "So I replied with a picture of a bigger one."

Paige spit her water halfway across the table before she got a hand up to cover her mouth. Coughing, she took a napkin and started to wipe the table. "Sorry."

"No worries. I've actually dumped water on pretty much everyone I've ever eaten with, so maybe we just got the awkward water moment out of the way."

Paige laughed. "Happy to be of service."

Linda folded her arms on the table. "I assume you wanted to meet because I offered to listen if you needed to talk."

 _Yes. But isn't that using you?_ "I don't want to take advantage of that offer," Paige began.

"You're paying for my lunch. Seems like more of an even trade for me."

Paige gave a small smile. "Okay, well...I don't always know where Walter is. And that's hard. But whether I know where he's at or not, c – currently, it almost doesn't matter. Because time zones are so hard. Sometimes us Skyping, or talking on the phone...it means one of us goes without sleep, or wakes up in the middle of the night for some phone quickie...that was poorly phrased," she said when Linda's expression grew uncomfortable. "I mean we want to talk to each other but all we can time is a five minute, basic _checking in_ conversation." She rested her head in her hands, her elbows on the table top.

"Are you guys ready to order?"

The waiter's chipper voice made Paige want to bash her head against the wall. But instead, she lifted it gently, ordered a house salad and cheese fries, and pressed her fingers into her temples as Linda placed her order. Paige caught that she was allergic to something. She didn't remember what less than five seconds later.

"So you're not talking to Walter as much," Linda said.

"Uh huh." Paige's arms folded on the table and she rested her chin on them. "I miss him so much. I'm sorry." She tipped her head to the side, closing her eyes. "You don't need to hear all of this."

"Paige." Paige waited, but there was silence, so she opened her eyes and looked back at Linda. The other woman continued. "Your team saved my life. And...and I like you guys. If I can help...maybe I can hope to one day even put a dent in what I owe you."

"I don't want you to spend time with me because you think that you owe it to me."

"Paige, just talk to me. And believe me when I tell you I don't mind listening."

Paige shrugged. "I mean, not much else to tell, I guess. It's just...it's been just over a month and it's so hard. I...Ralph's father, Drew, he was supposed to come home after the end of his season. Then he signed another contract. Then another. And when Tim went to Jordan, he ended up extending his time there and that's when we broke up. We didn't even survive the original time he was going to be there. And I'm...I guess I'm afraid that Walter will have to stay longer, too. That the world will need more saving that only he can manage and he'll be gone for..." she almost made the word longer by adding _ever_ , but instead she opted for trailing off.

Linda cocked her head. "I don't know much about any of these situations," she said slowly, "but from what I can tell, there's a huge difference in this one with Walter than with Michael and Tim."

"Drew."

"Drew. Right." Linda shrugged. "Both of them were _offered_ new or extended positions. And both of them thought that those positions were more appealing to them than you. If something crazy happens with the world and Walter has to...go to more places or whatever, I'm just assuming this is a security job, that's not him choosing something over you. That's like...it's like selling your family farm versus eminent domain coming in and not giving you a choice."

"I know what you're saying and I know that it makes sense. I just can't help but feel like if he tells me he has to stay even one day longer that it will feel like the worst thing in the world."

* * *

"Where's Paige at?" Cabe asked, pulling a sixth sandwich out of the bag. "I didn't see her when we took the orders but I got her the usual."

"She's out to lunch," Happy said. "With a friend."

"Paige has other friends?" Cabe said, then frowned. "That came out horribly. I'll put this sandwich in the fridge."

"I'll do it," Sylvester said. "I'm heading there to put this apple back, anyway."

"I hope Paige is having a good time," Allie said, unwrapping her sandwich. "The poor thing has been so...flat...lately."

"I'm glad she got out of the garage," Toby said. "I have to come up with more distraction methods because _someone_ doesn't give us any cases."

"You guys have had three this past week," Cabe said. "Be grateful no one is trying to blow us up today." He took a bite of his sandwich, chewing thoughtfully. "You know, though," he admitted quietly, "I'm glad we don't have to worry about her for a few hours."

"Really?" Happy said. "You're always the...always present supportive...dad...type."

"Yeah, but I miss Walter too," Cabe said, wiping some mayonnaise from his lip. "We all do." He glanced at Sylvester as the mathematician rejoined the group. "But we don't want to fixate on our own feelings when she's around because this is a thousand times worse for her. With her history and all. But now that she's not here..."

The garage grew silent. Happy picked at her sandwich. Toby nodded slowly.

"Just three and a half more months," Sylvester said quietly.

"We can do this." Toby said firmly.

Happy nodded.

"Yeah we can," Cabe said. "But it's hard as hell."


	10. Chapter 10

"I'm really annoyed with myself for not bringing my laptop today," Paige said. "I had it right on the counter and then I didn't stick it into my bag."

"Thankfully this isn't a job that really requires much computer work." Sylvester glanced over at the mechanic's table. "Or one that requires...anyone but her."

"It requires me too," Toby said, making a point of showing them that he was, in fact, passing her the tools she needed when she asked. "I am doing the very important job of handling Happy's parts. Both at home and at work."

"I will handle this wrench at your parts if you don't stop being a perv," Happy said, clearly trying to hide a smirk. "Hand me the thing in your right hand – and don't make a dirty comment."

"You know me so well, my lady."

"You wanna take off?" Sylvester asked. "Get some lunch or get...away...from all this gross innuendo?"

Paige laughed. "I don't think we get a cut from the job if we don't stick around while they work on it."

"We will be bringing them nourishment to help their cognitive function stay at capacity," Sylvester argued. "We will be a crucial role in Happy updating this thing."

Paige smirked. "I like your way of thinking."

"Where to?"

Before they could answer, the garage door opened and Cabe strode in, in the process of putting his phone back in his jacket pocket.

Everyone stopped working. Everyone could tell by the older man's expression that something was wrong.

"I just received some...disturbing news," Cabe said solemnly.

"What's the matter?" Sylvester asked. He began to fidget. "Cabe, I don't like that look on your face."

"I don't either," Paige said, feeling suddenly nervous. "What's going on?"

"Do we have a case that all of us can actually contribute to?" Toby asked.

"No...a U.S. Navy base overseas has been attacked," Cabe said. "Bombed. They can't even begin to estimate how many people are dead." He shook his head. "God, we don't need another war."

"Do we..." Toby glanced at Paige. "Do we know that this base...isn't...wherever Walter is right now?"

Cabe looked uncomfortable. "Well, I don't know that it is. And the odds of that are...really guys, the odds of that are really low. This base is in Asia. We don't...I don't, rather, know where he is right now. But Sylvester, you can tell us..."

"Roughly twenty known United States naval bases around the world, probably almost a dozen high profile secret ones, so let's just say thirty bases, but then...we don't know, Walter is at Army and Marine and Air Force bases too, isn't he?" Sylvester bit his lip. "Less than one percent chance. Really small. Microscopic, Paige," he turned and put a hand on her shoulder. "I'm sure he wasn't at that base."

Paige realized she'd done nothing but stare blankly ahead since Cabe had begun to brief them. Her heart was racing, and she thought she might pass out. Shaking her head slightly, she drew in a deep breath. "I'm going to just...give him a call. Just...just to double check. It'll make me – all of us – feel better. Yes?"

"Yeah," Toby said, nodding.

Cabe nodded as well. "That's a good idea. And I'm sure he's too busy to talk to all of us, but tell him we all say hello, will you?"

"Yes. Yeah. Definitely." Paige nodded, pulling her phone out of her pocket. She jogged up the stairs, dialing as she reached the loft.

Ring.

Ring.

Ring.

Ring.

The high pitched beep made Paige's heart leap into her throat. "Uh," she said, "Walter, it's Paige. Cabe just told us that something went down at a base in Asia and, like, I _know_ you're fine but if you could just call me back when you can it'd give all of us here at the home base some peace of mind. Thanks. I love you. Bye."

She shoved the phone in her back pocket and jogged back down the stairs. "I'm going home."

"Did you talk to him?" Happy asked.

"Went to voicemail. Maybe he's charging it. I'm...I left my computer at home. I'm going to go get it and send him a message on Skype."

"Well, we can hold down the fort here," Cabe said. "Happy's really the only one working on this job anyway."

"Back to it," she said, nodding. "Dineen. Keep us updated."

She nodded, grabbing her purse. "Of course."

* * *

 

Paige's knee was hitting the bottom of the table at least five times per second. "Come on, come on, come on," she said anxiously, watching the somewhat blurry profile photo of Walter's – the three of them at the beach – as her account called him. "Answer, goddammit," she said through her teeth.

_Call to Walter. No answer._

The chat box popped back up, showing her recent messages.

_Walter, there was an attack at a base. Just let me know you're okay, okay?_

_Walter, the team is worried. You don't have to call. Just message me back. I don't want to freak Ralph out._

She picked up the phone, dialing his number again and lifting it to her ear.

Ring.

Ring.

Beep.

"Walter, look, if you get this before you get on Skype, I've left you a few SMS messages too, just they don't have information on where you are so naturally..." her voice caught. "So naturally we're worried. Please just call me. We don't have to talk long, just...just..." she trailed off, and when she spoke again her voice sounded thin, weak. "Please just confirm it wasn't where you are. That it wasn't you. Please." She took a breath. "Love you."

Upon hanging up, she stared at her Skype chat. Nothing. No response. No _Walter is typing_ notification.

She stood up and walked in circles around the living room, running her hands through her hair. A nervous knot was twisting in her stomach. She suddenly was finding it hard to breathe. She returned to the chair.

_Walter, I'm scared. Please answer me._

Of course he wasn't at his computer. If he was, he'd have responded. He never kept her waiting on purpose. At least, not when he wasn't being the World's Biggest Tease but now was not at all the context that he typically behaved that way in. He never did anything to exacerbate her worry.

She looked back at the screen, her hands on the keyboard again.

 _Walter_?

She bit her lip, feeling the tears threatening to leak out of her eyes. _Hold it together, Dineen,_ she thought.

But Ralph wasn't here. There was no one else here. No one she had to be strong for.

The screen remained unchanged. No response. No typing. Her phone was sitting on the desk next to the laptop and hadn't rung. He _never_ missed a call from her. He always messaged back right away. Always.

Paige picked up the phone again. When she heard the beep, a noise forced its way out of her throat that sounded animalistic. She threw the phone onto the couch, making a beeline for the bedroom because alone or not, she needed privacy.

Walter's shirt – the one he'd left her, the one that smelled like him, the only thing of him she might have left – was on the dresser. She grabbed it in both hands, crumpling onto the bed and rolling onto her side, clutching it to her chest as the tears escaped from her eyes, starting to dampen her pillow.

"Walter," she sobbed, her body shaking, aching, tense. "Walter."


	11. Chapter 11

Ralph disappeared into his room as soon as she told him.

Paige wondered if he wanted to be alone, or if he was throwing himself into school work as a distraction, or if he simply wanted to leave _her_ alone because he knew how much she hated to cry in front of him. She had such a love – hate relationship with that idea. She loved the thought that he wanted to spare her embarrassment, but she hated that that would mean he was much more aware than she wanted him to be. She hated that that meant there were more and more things she couldn't protect him from.

She kept repeating what she'd told herself whenever she worried that she and Walter wouldn't survive the distance.  That she'd come through this before.  That she had Ralph, and would always have Ralph, and that it didn't matter if a man stopped loving her because Ralph was all she needed.

But none of that was comforting now.  If Walter was dead, Paige didn't know how she would recover.  She didn't know _if_ she could.  She didn't even want to think about what it would do to her son.

She jumped as her phone began to buzz, and when her shaking hand managed to turn it over to see the display, the air rushed from her lungs in a shuddering breath. "Walter. Oh thank God."

She managed to press the green _accept call_ button, realizing as she put the phone to her ear that possibly she wouldn't hear Walter's voice on the other end. Maybe it was someone calling to tell her...but no, that couldn't be, because if he was inside of a base that blew up, any explosion that would kill him would surely destroy the phone...wouldn't it?

"Hello?"

"Paige, it's me."

She burst into tears. "Oh God, Walter. You're alive."

"Yeah. I am. I'm at a Lily Pad in Africa. The base that was attacked isn't even on this continent. I'm so sorry you were worrying. I called as soon as I could."

Suddenly, Paige's relief turned to a flash of anger. She sat up straight, wiping her eyes. "Eight hours after this attack was as soon as you could? Somehow I doubt that."

Walter seemed to sense her mood by the change in tone. "Paige?"

"I just...you know how much I worry about you and I can't believe it took you eight hours to be like oh hey, it's the love of your life, I'm not blown to pieces thousands of miles away from home."

"I..." Walter sounded baffled at her words. "I had a six hour flight, then had to go into prep with one of the top technicians here so we can start on the training. I got into the air like ten minutes before the explosion happened, and this secure phone they gave me doesn't work up there. And I couldn't take the phone into the prep room because the signal would mess up some equipment. I called you...I called you literally _the moment_ I got your voicemails."

"It's just really interesting that you make all these promises to always be there and I can't get ahold of you when I really, really need to. What if something had happened to me? What if something had happened to Ralph?"

"You aren't being fair," Walter said, and Paige couldn't decide if the feeling in her stomach at the detection of anger in his tone was guilt or rage. "I _just_ told you I was in the air, then had to go right to the training session. I was only dark for eight hours. We've gone a full day without any contact. I didn't know about the bombing and therefore had no indicators that you would be scared. And I'm sorry, I'm _so_ sorry, that you were worrying like that but it's not like I let you worry on purpose. You ought to know by now that I would never do that."

"I know." Paige sighed. "This is just so hard, Walter."

"You know it's hard for me too though, right?"

"I'm sure it is," she said, "I mean, I know it is, but..."

"No, Paige. You don't get to throw a 'but' in there."

She blinked, switching the phone to her other ear. "Excuse me? We both miss each other, Walter. And I'm the one who has had such horrible experiences with distance. You can't possibly understand how gun shy I am around this."

"Yeah, yeah you do have a history. And I get that, I honestly get that. And I've worked _so_ hard to make you feel better about it – about us. But at least you're not alone." She heard Walter take a breath. "You don't have me with you, and I don't have you with me. But you have Ralph. And Cabe, and Happy and Toby and Sylvester. You get to go to work and see people who are essentially family. You get to go home with your son. I go to work with people who I don't care about beyond my general concern for the welfare of humanity. At the end of each day I go to that night's tiny room that I may or may not be sharing with people I barely know or have never even met. Other than me, everything is the same for you. I have nothing here."

"Thanks, Walter. I spent most of the day thinking you were dead and now you're guilting me into feeling worse."

"That's not what I'm doing, Paige, and you know it. This isn't going to work if we can't both feel these things."

" _This isn't going to work_?" Paige said. "What in the Hell does that mean?"

"You know what it means. You've always been the one telling me that we both have to work hard at this relationship. That love is wonderful but it's never easy. That that is exactly what makes it worth it. And we're worth it, Paige – I know you're worth it to me. But I have to be worth it to you, too. Sometimes I have to shoulder pain for you, and sometimes you have to for me. But this is a time where we both have to do it. I know that you show emotions better than I do. But you should know by now that I feel everything just as intensely as you do and it's not like you're at home miserable and I'm over here not feeling anything at all."

"I thought you were _dead_ today," Paige said, her voice cracking again. "It'd have been nice to have some tenderness, is all." She heard a sigh over the phone, and continued angrily. "You were the one to want to talk about routines being disrupted. Today was an average day for you on this job. New location, training prep. Today, it was _my_ world turned upside down. I thought I'd lost you. And now, even though I know you're okay..." _I feel like we're so far apart. In more than miles._

"And I said I was sorry," Walter said. "I _am_. Paige, I love you. It hurts me to know that you were hurting. But it isn't my fault."

"Yeah. Like it was never Drew's fault either. Wasn't his fault Ralph wasn't talking. Wasn't his fault it was a better financial option to take that other pitching offer. Or Tim! Tim, oh _Tim_. Wasn't his fault I didn't want to meet his parents. Wasn't his fault I wasn't comfortable taking my clothes off with him. Wasn't ever his fault. It's never any of your fault, is it?"

"Paige, I cannot _believe_ you would..."

"I don't want to hear it. Okay, Walter? You were perfectly fine this whole time. And I worried sick. And for nothing."

"So, what?" Walter asked. "Isn't that better than me actually getting hurt or killed?"

"Are you implying that I'm saying it's not?"

Another exasperated sigh through the phone. "Paige, I have to train the..."

"Now we're walking away in the middle of an argument. Excellent."

"You know I'm already late. You know I go almost straight from prep to training. I didn't even have time to call but I did because I knew how worried you were. I wanted to ease your mind. I didn't think I'd somehow be blamed for that."

"Fine. Go to your job."

"I'll call you later," Walter said, his voice still sounding tense. "Love you, bye."

Paige drew her knees up to her chest, holding the phone between them and breathing hard out of her nose.

She hadn't heard Ralph's door creak open, but it must have, because within a minute or two the boy was standing hesitantly at the entrance to the living room. "Mom?" He asked, his voice quiet.

Her eyes shifted to him, and her eyebrows rose in acknowledgement.

Ralph bit his lip. "Is...is it over?"


	12. Chapter 12

Paige absentmindedly stirred her coffee as she headed back to the main area of the garage. She glanced up when she heard the sound of a chair pushing back, and stopped, ducking out of sight when she saw Sylvester approaching her son.

"Hey Ralphie," Sylvester said quietly. "Is something going on with your mom?"

Ralph looked down, avoiding eye contact.

"Hey now," Toby said, dragging his chair away from Happy's workstation to sit in front of the boy. "You can talk to us."

Ralph shrugged. "I don't know what there is to tell." He shifted uncomfortably.

"Your mom told us that Walter was fine," Toby said. "So did Cabe...did she actually get to talk to him?"

"Yeah." Ralph bit his lip. "They fought last night."

"They f..." Sylvester trailed off. "B – bad?"

Ralph nodded. "I asked her if they'd broken up. She said no. But I haven't seen her so..." He shook his head. "The last time she looked that hopeless was the night he fired her. Like she had no idea how to go on. And I..." He licked his upper lip. "I'm worried. Everything was going so good."

"You know it's bad when the kid uses improper grammar," Toby mumbled under his breath to Sylvester. "Look, Ralph," he said, reaching out. "Keep your chin up. Parents fight sometimes. And tensions were really high yesterday with everything going on. They'll probably be okay when it all dies down."

Ralph shifted again, tugging at his shirt. "I hope so."

"Come here," Sylvester said, crouching down and opening his arms. "You need a Sly hug."

Paige didn't realize she was biting her lip until she tasted blood. She blinked, a familiar stinging in her eyes, and turned on her heel, heading for...anywhere private. With a little luck, she could find a place to cry without running into anyone else.

No such luck. She almost ran smack into Cabe coming around the corner. Her coffee sloshed out of the mug and she hissed in pain, setting it down on the nearest flat surface and shaking her hand.

"Hey there," Cabe said, tipping his head to the side. "You hanging in there, Dineen?"

Paige wanted to look cool, look casual, but she'd never been the best at that. She threw her hands up feebly. "Uh..."

"You need me to lend an ear?" Cabe asked gently. "I know you and Walter had words last night..."

 _Ralph, I swear to God._ But Paige couldn't really be angry with him. She knew he was unsettled, and she'd always encouraged him to talk about things that bothered him. He knew it wasn't fair to make her comfort him when she was like this, so he sought out the rest of the team. It made sense. It was mature. She couldn't let her frustration over the Walter situation snap onto her son.

"Look," Cabe continued, "I don't want to make you uncomfortable. I just want you to know that you're not bothering me if you want to talk."

His words sounded exactly like what Linda had said in the diner not too long ago. Even now, years removed from her abusive upbringing, even having made peace with her mother, it still sometimes surprised Paige how wonderful and supportive her family was.

And that just made her feel so much worse.

She sighed. "It felt better to be angry than to be scared. It gave me this..." Paige gestured at herself with her hands. "It gave me some sort of illusion of control. And I just...I let him feel bad. I essentially told him that he doesn't have the right to be miserable because I feel like I've had it worse. And..." She shook her head slowly. "And now..." She knew her voice was going to crack when she finished the sentence, but she plunged forward anyway. "And now he's going to leave me too." She wiped her eye. "And I don't want him to leave me. I can't...I love him so much, I..."

"Oh, sweetheart." Cabe stepped forward, wrapping his arms around her. Paige buried her head into his shoulder, letting the tears fall. "Sweetheart," Cabe said again, gently rubbing her back, "he's not going to leave you."

She sighed. "But I messed up. And I didn't mess up the other times."

"People mess up in relationships," Cabe said, rocking her gently. "You haven't left him whenever he has."

 _But when he has, he was always trying to love me. He just didn't know how._ "I suppose."

"I hate seeing you miserable, sweetheart," Cabe said. He held her at arm's length. "Why don't you call him? You're cooled off. He's probably feeling the same way. Just go call him and talk to him."

 _I don't know if he's training right now. Or sleeping._ Paige tried to calculate what time it was for him. She knew he was in Africa. But she didn't know where. And she wasn't even sure how many time zones were over the ocean.

But that wasn't her biggest concern.

"I'm worried that if I call him and he doesn't answer I'll fall apart."

Cabe looked at her sympathetically. "Do you want me to sit with you?"

She nodded.

They climbed the stairs, and Paige was painfully aware of her son watching them. She tried not to think about it.

She sat on the edge of the bed and Cabe pulled up the chair next to her. She stared at her phone, biting her lower lip and silently cursing when she again tasted blood. "Kid, I'm telling you," Cabe said. "It's going to be okay."

She nodded. Hesitantly, her hand shaking, she pressed the call button.

Ring.

Ring.

Ring.

Then, "hello?"

The relief on her face was evident. Cabe smiled, squeezed her hand, and headed back for the stairs.

"Walter."

"Paige. Paige, I'm so sorry."

"No. No, Walter, don't be sorry, I'm the one who..."

"No, I..."

"Okay," she said, "one of us has to talk first."

"You can decide."

"Okay. I'll go." She took a deep breath. "I was unfair. I...I took the easy way out. I thought it'd be easier to blame you for the way I was feeling and I just...I just ran with that. And it was so, so wrong. And beyond that, I – I..." she paused, trying to stop her voice from cracking again. "I should have thought more about how hard this is for you. I guess...I guess I love you so much I forget sometimes that you love me just as much. And I don't mean that in the sense that it's not like you ever make me doubt how you feel. It's just like...it's so strong for me and it's kinda unbelievable that I got so lucky...s – so lucky that you love me like that." She licked her lips. "So I'm sorry. I wasn't fair. And I'm so...so glad you're alive." She sighed, closing her eyes. "Okay, you go."

"Okay." She heard Walter inhale, exhale, then inhale again. "I was wrong to bring up how I feel right at that moment. You were scared and upset and I should have just listened."

"No," Paige started.

"It's my turn to talk," he said, and she gulped. He was right. "Sorry."

Walter continued. "I should have expressed the ways in which this is hard from me from the start. And not let it all come pouring out while you were...extra fragile. I was trying to keep it all in to make you feel better and it all came out at the wrong time...and it just made it all worse."

"Did I do something wrong, that made you feel you couldn't tell me how lonely you were?"

"No," Walter said. "No, you didn't."

Paige drew her knees up to her chest. "O – okay."

"Why don't we just say we both have some justified feelings, and we both could have reacted better too."

She nodded. "Yeah. I'd like that."

"Okay."

"Walter, I really am glad you're alive, I...I'm worried that this is just going to make it so much harder to wait until you come back. The holidays will be coming up soon...Halloween..."

Walter chuckled. "Not the typical family holiday."

"I know. But you know how special it is to me now."

"Maybe I'll dress up and Skype you and Ralph."

Paige giggled, imagining Walter sitting in a shared room in full costume. "Now if you don't do that I'll be sad."

"It's a date, then."

"Good."

"Look, I really hate to do this, but..."

"You have to get to work."

"I have a meeting."

"That's okay. I know we still probably have some things to discuss, but...I'm really glad we talked." Paige couldn't even begin to describe how much better she felt. Even internally. "Thank you for being so understanding."

"Thank _you_."

"Well, I'll let you go. Can you call us tomorrow? I know Ralph will want to talk to you."

"Yeah. I'll send you a Skype message when I'll have time."

"Okay. Sounds good."

"I love you."

Paige smiled. "I love you, too."


	13. Chapter 13

Paige's ringtone jolted her out of a deep sleep.

She was briefly annoyed. She almost never slept well these days. There was a period in her life where she enjoyed having a bed to herself. She had more room, could sleep in the middle, and never had to worry about things like blanket hogging, kicking or being kicked, or waking up too hot due to shared body heat under the covers. And she still did like getting to sleep alone, occasionally, finding it extra relaxing.

A prolonged period of time without Walter next to her was anything but.

Paige grabbed for her phone, and her annoyance evaporated and was replaced by concern when she saw the number. Sitting up and turning on her bedside lamp, Paige put the phone to her ear. "Hello?"

"Paige. It's late. O – or early, rather. I'm sorry."

She hadn't answered the phone with his name because she had been terrified that it might not be him on the other end. Relief flooded through her. "Don't be sorry. I'm just glad you're okay."

There was a brief silence on the other end, then, "ah, you were afraid the late hour meant something had happened." She heard a sigh. "I'm sorry."

If he knew what time it was in Los Angeles when he called, something _had_ to have happened. "Walter, what's the matter?"

She heard another sigh. "It's stupid."

"What's stupid?"

"So…I'm in a fairly safe area right now. Considering. And so I will go for walks in the town nearby for some fresh air and to clear my head, and all that. It helps my cognition remain where it needs to be." She heard him draw in a deep breath. "And I was out today…or…no, no, it's the same day for you, so yes, t – today…and…and you know there's…there's families in this town. Obviously. It being a town and all."

Paige cocked her head. "Uh huh."

"And it's been okay. And today I was walking and there was this couple, and they had a boy about Ralph's age."

A silence followed, and Paige, wondering if there was more to the story, waited a moment before asking "and?"

"I told you it's stupid."

"No," she said gently. "It's not stupid."

"I just…I just needed to hear your voice. I'm sorry."

"Walter, please don't be sorry." Not much time had passed since their fight and follow up heart – to – heart, but Paige had already noticed a difference, and it was one she welcomed. They were both more verbal about how they felt, and more conscious of timing. Walter had gotten much, much better at using his words in the time she'd known him, but she'd noticed yet another leap forward in the time since their phone call. She didn't care that it was three in the morning. She would listen to him like this anytime, anywhere.

"I woke you up."

"I don't care." She rolled onto her side, balancing the phone on her ear. "I know how you're feeling. Sometimes I'll be out and just see two people holding hands and I start missing you more. And Lord knows you've been so good about my phone calls at all hours."

"I just…I try to imagine…but I don't know what I want. I don't know if I want to be back in L.A. with you or if I want you two to be here with me because it is quite lovely and I know you'd love the town, but…but I just want us in the same space. Wherever that is."

"You're making the world a much safer place," Paige said, hoping her voice sounded soothing as she detected a hitch in his breathing that told her he was starting to lose control. "The greater good. You're doing such a good thing here, Walter. And I miss you terribly. I miss seeing your smile. And I miss your hand on my back while we work. I miss those eyes. I miss you standing close to me, and I miss your arms around me…" Her voice grew quieter, even though she was already speaking in a low tone and no one could overhear. "I miss your lips and your hands and falling asleep cuddled up to you. I miss everything. But it's not gone for good. And I just keep thinking about how I can't wait to see you again. It's only a matter of time."

"Mmmm." She heard Walter take another breath. "I miss that too. Everything you just said."

"You sound a little better."

"I feel a little better."

A small smile played on her lips. "Good."

"I suppose I should go. Lunch hour is almost over and you need to sleep."

"And you need to eat."

"Yes. I am."

"Good."

"I love you, Paige."

"I love you, Walter."

"I'll talk to you later, okay?"

"Walter?" Paige blurted.

"Hmmm," she heard him reply, "yes?"

"Thank you for um…" she bit her lip. "I love hearing you say you love me and especially now, when we're apart. And you say it every time we talk. Even when we were fighting. You made sure. You made sure to say it before you hung up. And I…thank you for all of that."

"Paige," Walter said, his own voice dropping into something more intimate. "You shouldn't thank me for that."

"But you always make the effort to…"

"No. That's just it." Walter drew in a breath. "A thank you is for when someone put out an effort. And I know words are still hard for me sometimes. But not those. Telling you that I love you is the easiest part of any day."


	14. Chapter 14

Happy's usual idea of relaxing included welding or wiring or doing what Toby had hundreds of euphemisms for. But occasionally, she liked doing this too, holding his hand and walking around the city. This way wasn't as easy for her to zone out, to not think about things, to clear her head, but she found it oddly enjoyable. This was something that normal couples did, and after feeling like a sore thumb her entire life, getting to blend in with the world felt nice. Getting to do it with Toby by her side made it even nicer.

"Hey, Happy, look over there."

She stopped, looking in the direction that her husband was gesturing. The only building directly across the street from them was a library. "What?"

"Through that window. Do you see what I see?"

Happy focused on the window. "Is that Paige in the library?"

"Well, yes," Toby said, "but look who is sitting across the table from her."

"I can't tell who that is," Happy said. "I'm shorter than you and I can't see it as well."

"Would you like to put your vagina on the back of my neck?"

Happy snorted. Toby was referencing an old reality television episode that they'd watched at the garage when both were too tired to get up and find the remote. A woman had gotten onto her teammate's shoulders to take a photo over a chain link fence, and when talking about it later, the teammate had said that she had phrased her idea that way. Toby often used that as a form of humor – more often than not pointing out that the sentence was not anatomically accurate.

"Of course," Toby continued, "anything coming in contact with one's neck would not actually be…"

"Oh, it's Linda! From…from all that."

"Linda," Toby said with a nod. He adjusted his hat. "This is interesting."

"I wonder if they…ran into each other…or…"

"No," Toby said, "I don't think so. This looks…the body language and everything…" he shook his head. "They met up here."

"I didn't know they were friends," Happy said. "Although this does explain who she's been getting those lunches with."

Paige said something to Linda, and the other woman laughed, then held up a hand and fished out her phone, her lips moving rapidly as she found something and handed the device to Paige. Paige put a hand over her mouth and threw back her head, laughing as she handed the phone back to Linda.

"It's interesting," Toby said, nodding slowly. "I'd have thought that they would not want anything to do with each other."

"I suppose it might have a bit of awkwardness," Happy said, "but Paige has always been good at getting along with people and Linda did seem pretty nice." Happy hadn't really gotten to know Linda, but she'd given off the impression, at least to the mechanic, of being fairly easy to get along with.

Toby acknowledged her comments with a nod, and then shrugged. "Yeah, that is true, but…women…when it comes to romantic entanglements, they tend to be…"

"Catty? Immature?"

"Not always," he said quickly. "But sometimes." Toby shrugged. "I saw a lot of it when I was in school."

"Sure, sometimes," Happy said. "But that sometimes has turned into a stereotype in society. From my experience, it's men who can't let things go."

"Walter and I got past the whole green card marriage thing almost immediately."

"Again," Happy said, shrugging. "There's exceptions. But I think, by and large, guys have sticks permanently lodged up their asses a lot more often than women do."

* * *

The faucet was a cheap imitation of the country's luxury setups, but Walter barely noticed. His hands were clean. That's what the goal was, after all. He shook his hands over the sink and grabbed one of the napkins used to dry, then he turned toward the restroom's exit and almost bumped into someone heading in.

Walter hadn't seen the person he now found himself face to face with in a long time, but he almost never forgot a face. And he certainly would never forget this one.

"Tim."

The former SEAL slowly folded his arms. "Walter. O. Brien."

Walter couldn't help but notice that Tim had taken on a combat stance. He blurted out the first thing that came to mind. "This isn't Jordan."

"You know, you did always say you were smart, but that observation is just…" Tim clicked his tongue.

"H – how have you been?"

Tim shrugged. "Busy."

"You've transferred?"

"No," Tim said. "They gave me a few days' leave and I thought I'd check out this part of the world."

"Ah. Are you finding it satisfactory?"

Tim cocked his head. "Not the word I'd use, but…yeah. Yeah, it's nice. What are you doing here? Team Scorpion working on public bathrooms in Morocco?"

"No. I'm on a mission to increase security at military bases around the world."

"By yourself?"

"Yes."

"How long is this job?"

"It's five months. Give or take."

"That will be good for the military," Tim said. "As much as it pains me to admit it, and it does, you're the best there is for that sort of thing." He grunted. "Cabe doing well?"

"Oh yes. Everyone is."

"Good to hear. Paige, Ralph?"

"They're both well," Walter said. "Ralph is starting school again soon." He debated over what to say next. He had no idea if Tim had ever been told, or found out, about him and Paige. But he wanted him to know. "Paige and I have been working on making the loft in the garage a bit more livable. We're all keeping busy."

"Good. So I take it, you and Paige, then?" Tim asked, cocking an eyebrow.

"Yes," Walter said. "A little over a year, now."

"Ah."

"I didn't know if you knew."

"No. She and I have not talked."

Walter knew, but he was still pleased to hear it from him. "Oh. I didn't know that."

"You wouldn't have been okay with it if she did."

"How do you know that?"

"Because you can't stand me. But it's fine, whatever," Tim said, waving a hand dismissively. "I don't care for her anymore."

"But you still can't stand me either," Walter said. "Because even though you don't have any feelings for Paige anymore, I wanted her when you had her."

Tim clicked his tongue again. "You sure your I.Q. is only 197?"

Walter set his jaw. "I know I'm supposed to say it was nice to see you again."

"Don't worry. Me either."

Walter nodded. So did Tim. Then the genius left the restroom.


	15. Chapter 15

Jilly and Bridget’s tests were nearly flawless.  Walter studied what they had created and smiled to himself.  The two women had done the best of the twenty – four people in his class.  Easily.  They were head and shoulders ahead of the men.  He made a mental note to tell Happy.  She would be pleased.

He was sitting in his quarters – as in a quarter of a room, he thought wryly – looking over what had been done that day.  This was a particularly strong, promising group.  He would probably recommend some of them be transferred to some of the areas with lesser talent in the area of security.

The intercom buzzed.  Walter looked up in surprise.  He had noticed it when he came in, but hadn’t paid much attention to it.  Only a few places he’d been sleeping had had communication like this right inside.  He pressed the button, suddenly unsure of how he should respond it.  He didn’t have a rank.  He briefly was amused at the memory of Sylvester mistakenly demanding once that he state his name, rank, and favorite brand of cereal.  Then he realized he hadn’t spoken into the intercom yet.  “Uh.  Walter O’Brien.  Security specialist.”

There was a little laugh on the other end.  “I know who you are, sir.”

It was one of the female students.  Walter couldn’t tell by the voice.  He wagered a guess.  “Jilly?”

“Yeah.  Can you come back down here?  To the lab.  I have a problem.”

“A problem?  What kind of problem?”  Walter looked back down at his notes from her work.

“I don’t want to say over the intercom.  But I…definitely need your help with it.”

Walter supposed it was smart of her to not want to talk about high tech computer security over a relatively public system.  He shook his head at himself for not recognizing that himself.  “Smart.  I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

“Great.  Thank you.”

Walter located his shoes and slipped them on.  Normally, he’d be planning to talk to Paige and Ralph soon.  But he knew they were in Montana on a case, and if they needed his assistance, someone would call him.  He had time to help Jilly out with whatever she wanted.

Reaching the computer lab, Walter pushed the door open, remembering from earlier how heavy it was.  He turned immediately upon entering, making sure it didn’t slam shut.  Turning back toward the room, Walter stopped cold.  “Um.  I’m confused.”

Jilly was wearing a night gown that stopped several inches above her knees, and her hair, always professionally twisted into a knot at the nape of her neck, was down.  Her uniform was thrown over a chair, and some of the computers were moved, leaving a clear space on the table.  She was barefoot.  And she was looking at him in a way that had made him uncomfortable if it came from any woman but the one he left behind in Los Angeles.  “Come on, O’Brien,” she said.  “You didn’t really think I asked you to come here to help me learn more about firewalls.”

Actually, that was exactly why he’d thought that she had asked him there.  Walter swallowed and cleared his throat.  “You want physical intimacy.”

“That is one way of putting it, yes.”  Jilly extended her leg slightly, pointing her toes and moving them in a slight back and forth motion on the floor.

“I’m in a relationship, Jilly.”  He wouldn’t have been interested even if he was single.  But Walter knew enough by now to not tell her that.

“Your girlfriend is thousands of miles away.”

“A relationship status is not determined by physical proximity to one another.”

Jilly laughed.  “You’re so cute.”  She took a step toward him.  “You’ve been away from her for a while.  You _must_ be craving the feel of a woman.”  She gave a little, flirtatious smile.  “And who is ever going to know?  Paige won’t.”

Walter sighed.  “Jilly, I’m not going to cheat on my girlfriend.  I love her.”

“Walter,” she said, stepping closer.  She was almost in his personal space now.  “Sex isn’t always about love.  You slept with people before Paige, right?”

Not many.  But that wasn’t the question.

“And she slept with people before you.”

“Yes.”

“So…” Jilly shrugged.  “What’s the problem?”  She took another step toward him, reaching for his shirt and undoing a button.  “It’s just sex.”  Her eyes darkened as she looked at him.  “And not to brag, but…I’m told that I know my way around a guy.”

Walter grabbed her wrist and pulled it away.  “Jilly, I’m not interested.”

Jilly bit her lip, tipping her head and looking as if she wasn’t taking him seriously.  She grabbed his hand, and before he could react had lifted and pressed it against one of her breasts.  Walter jerked his hand away again.  “Jilly.  Stop.”  He stepped to the side, then backing toward the door.

She looked surprised.  “Where are you going?”

“To report this to your supervisor.”

“Wait, what?”

“You heard me.  I said I wasn’t interested and you continued to initiate inappropriate contact.”

Jilly’s eyes flashed in alarm.  “No, you can’t.  Please!”  She jumped toward him.  “Walter, it’s hard enough being a woman in the military.  And it’s not like others aren’t hooking up.  Guys do it all the time.  Even here.”

Walter considered what she was saying.  Then he sighed.  “If you even look at me like that the rest of the time I’m here, I will tell him everything.”

He could tell that Jilly believed him.  She nodded.  “I’m sorry!”

She wasn’t sorry.  She was sorry he didn’t take the bait.  But she was right – men got away with worse all the time.  If he reported it, they’d find a way for it to ruin her career.  And she was damn good with those computers.  Walter nodded.  “Just remember.  Tomorrow.”

She nodded, her eyes still wide and her face pale, and Walter turned and power walked down the hallway, heading back to where his bunk was.  His mind was racing, processing what had just happened, and wondering what he was supposed to do now.

_Should I tell Paige?_


	16. Chapter 16

"Okay, so tell me again why you don't want to go dancing?"

Cabe lifted an eyebrow. "You know why I don't want to go dancing. Every time we go you convince me to do a fast dance and then I roll my ankle."

Allie grinned affectionately, twirling her fork in the bowl of rice noodles. "Have you ever wondered why you're able to do all sorts of physical things with Team Scorpion, and yet every time we dance you manage to hurt yourself?"

"I was trained to run and jump and kick things," Cabe said. "I was never trained to dance."

Allie rolled her eyes. Cabe supposed she could afford to act so cheerful. The sun was to her back. And he promised that he wouldn't wear his sunglasses on their lunch dates. But her energy was, as always, contagious.

"Cabe," Allie said, gesturing toward him with her fork, "your phone."

"Oh. Yeah, thanks." Cabe fished it out of his pocket and looked at the screen. It was Walter. "I'll be back in a second?" He said, raising his eyes to Allie across the tiny table.

She smiled and nodded.

"Hey, Walter," Cabe said, stepping a few yards away and taking shade under a decorative tr

"Good afternoon, Cabe," Walter said. "Am I interrupting anything?"

Cabe hesitated. Walter almost never called him unless it was important, even now that he was away. Walter wasn't a _just called to chat_ kind of guy. "No. No, you're not interrupting anything. What can I do for you, son?"

"I'm, uh…I'm actually not entirely sure."

"O…kay."

"Something happened a few days ago, and…I'm not sure how to proceed."

"Okay." Cabe's natural response would be a jokingly sarcastic comment about how he needed more information. But Walter knew that. And Cabe sensed it wasn't the time.

"Um…someone…someone attempted to have an intimate encounter with me. And I didn't…obviously I wasn't interested. But I'm uncertain as to if I should tell Paige."

"Okay," Cabe said. "Do you have a thought process on that?"

"My gut instinct is to tell her," Walter said. "But I don't know if that would scare her. I like being honest, I mean, she and I, we, we work best when we are honest with each other, and I'm sure that's how it is for most couples, especially when there isn't anything really to hide, but…"

"Son," Cabe said, deciding that it was time to interrupt. "Was this person…related to the work you're doing?"

Walter's silence gave Cabe the answer he needed. "We work with the military a lot. There's a chance – a slim one, but a chance – that we will run into whoever this person is again at some point. And if we do…and it somehow comes out what happened…I don't know, kid, but I think that would turn out to be worse than if you told her now."

"Because she would wonder why I didn't mention it before."

"Exactly. You got it."

"But…" Cabe heard Walter sigh. "But she's so insecure. And sad. I miss her, Cabe. I miss her terribly. But it's more than that for her. She's still afraid that we won't make it. And I'm still away for three months."

"I know," Cabe said. "But like you said, the two of you have always worked best when you are one hundred percent honest with each other."

There was another long silence on the other end of the line. "I don't look forward to having this conversation."

"You guys have been together a while now," Cabe said. "You know relationships are hard. Think of everything you and Paige have been through. This conversation is going to be easy in comparison."

"Yeah," Walter said, "but a long - distance relationship makes everything bigger."

* * *

Paige hated when she and Walter had a scheduled Skype call for a time when Ralph wasn't around, but Walter had spent a considerable amount of time chatting with her son when he called yesterday. She was almost glad that Ralph was at a friends' house tonight. She was looking forward to having some uninterrupted time to talk to him.

She smiled when she saw the icon pop up in the middle of her screen, and clicked the button to accept the call. Walter was smiling, reclined in what looked like a fairly comfortable bed for the type of place he was staying in.. "Hey, Love."

"Hi," she said, smiling back. "It's good to see you."

"You too," he said warmly. "How are you doing?"

Paige shrugged. "I'm okay. Things are going well here. I miss you, though."

"I miss you too," he said, "I…I miss you a lot."

"Well, I mean, only…" Paige trailed off, letting out a breath through her nose. "Only three months and a few days to go."

"Mmmm hmmm."

Walter looked slightly uncomfortable. The Skype connection was strong, but a pixel view of him made it ever so slightly more difficult to get a read on the nuances in his face. But she knew him. She knew him well, no, better than anyone else ever had, and something was bothering him. "You okay, honey?"

He furrowed his brow. "Uh, well, in the most basic sense, yes. But I…" He drew out the word. "I need to tell you something and I don't know how you're going to react. But it's better to tell you than keep it a secret. Because you and I are honest with each other no matter what, yes?"

Paige felt her stomach starting to knot up, and she cleared her throat quietly before speaking again, her voice lacking substance. "Yes. Okay."

Walter looked hesitant, drawing in a breath, so Paige was surprised when the next time he spoke, there was no stuttering, no pauses. "A woman I was training made an aggressive pass at me."

She blinked. "O – oh."

"Nothing happened," he added quickly. "I mean…I mean she wasn't wearing many clothes, and she grabbed my hand and put it on her chest, but I left. I left right away. You're the _only_ person I want, Paige."

Paige nodded. "Okay." She wasn't sure how she felt. On one hand, she didn't like it. She didn't like it one bit. She was away from him, she couldn't touch him, and someone else…even though nothing happened, this was a cruel reminder of what she didn't have here with her.

On the other hand, she was really damn proud that people wanted him. He was handsome, and kind, and despite his awkwardness he could have any woman he wanted in _that_ way, and he wanted her and only her.

Oddly enough, a situation presenting itself that had presented itself to the man she once thought she'd spend the rest of her life with, a situation that had contributed to the fear that nearly crippled her every time she thought about how far apart she and Walter were, almost made her more confidant this time.

"I wasn't sure if I should tell you," Walter said, clearly unnerved by her silence. "But…but you have nothing to worry about, and…"

"What did she say to you?" Paige bit her lip.

"What?"

"I know it's stupid, but…but what did she say?" Paige's hands were shaking, ever so slightly.

"She…" Walter furrowed his brow again. "She said that…that sex is sex. That it's separate from love, and that no one had to know. That she was sure that I missed being with you that way, and this would be good for both of us."

Paige nodded. "Okay."

"But I left. I told her off and I got out of there. I promise nothing happened."

"I believe you." She nodded faster. "I believe you." Sighing, Paige ran a hand through her hair, thinking. She sat in silence for a moment, staring at her lap, then slowly lifted her eyes back to the screen. "Do you?"

"Do…do I what?"

"Do you miss me? That way."

She saw his Adam's Apple bob, and then he nodded. "Yes. I do. I suppose more in the past few days. I was mostly missing…talking to you all the time. Holding you. Dancing. Feeling your hand in mine. Doing cases with you. Getting to watch movies with you and Ralph, and…and all that." He paused. "But since…since that happened…I…" He nodded again. "I do. I miss you so much. That way."

Paige sighed. "I miss you that way, too." She shifted her weight. "I love you."

Walter tipped his head. "She was wrong, you know."

"Who? About what?"

"Jilly. The woman at my last stop. Maybe sex can just be sex. And before you, that's all it was. For me. But now…" He shook his head. "Now, I can't imagine that. I can't imagine that I've ever even been with anyone but you. Even before we met. And I know that…that that works for other people." He shook his head again. "But I no longer understand it. I miss being with you that way, but it's you, specifically, that I miss."

Paige nodded, his words making her feel warm all over. "I understand," she said softly. "That's how I feel, too." She cocked her head. "Walter?"

"Hmmm?"

"Are you alone? Are you sharing a room?"

"Yes. No."

It took Paige a second to realize he was answering both her questions. She tipped her head to the side, letting her hair fall over her right shoulder as she looked at him flirtatiously. Reaching up, she started to unbutton her shirt. "What if we _pretend_ I'm there?"


	17. Chapter 17

“Whoa,” Toby said when he and Happy walked into the garage to see a pile of festive things on Paige’s desk.  “What’s the occasion?”

Happy tipped her head so slightly to the side it almost wasn’t noticeable.  “I hope it’s from Walter.”

He gave a little laugh.  “I mean, I was assuming it’s from Walter, but yeah, that would throw another wrench into the Waige relationship.” He snapped his fingers.  “I know what this is about.  It’s their anniversary.”

Happy looked at him strangely.  “Are you forgetting the whole thing where us and them have the same anniversary?”

“No, I mean…” Toby made a winding motion with his hand.  “It’s September twenty fourth.”

 _Ah.  The day they met._ Happy nodded.  “Walt had this stuff sent.”

Toby circled the desk.  “I don’t believe in opening other folks’ presents, but this all seems to be United States.  So he either set it up before he went or he called somewhere here to deliver it.”  He looked mildly offended.  “We could have thrown this all together.”

“See,” came a voice, and Happy looked up to see Sylvester slowly descending the stairs, “that’s why he didn’t contact you.  I do not _throw_ things together.  I carefully orchestrate…”

“Oh, shut up, Four Eyes,” Toby said.  “What’s all in here?”

“What’s all in where?”

Happy turned – the other two jumped – at the sound of Paige’s voice.  She was standing just inside the door, looking perplexed.

Sylvester threw his arms out in enthusiasm.  “Happy anniversary from Walter!”

Paige’s cheeks tinged pink as she walked over to her desk, reaching for the card tucked into a basket that seemed to hold bottles and soaps of her favorite scent.  “Oh my gosh,” she said when she opened it, putting her hand to her mouth.  “This is actually his…his writing.”

“He sent it over a month in advance to make sure it got here on time,” Sylvester said.  Paige put a hand over her eyes as she put the card to her chest.

Happy reached out for Toby’s hand.  She still wasn’t about public displays of affection.  But seeing Paige nearly come apart at the realization that she was touching something Walter had recently touched made her especially grateful that her husband was within reach.

Paige looked through the basket, smelling each item even though they all smelled the same.  Her eyes were bright.  Happy knew she wasn’t good at reading body language, but she could tell that Paige was happy.  She wondered if this was due to her knowledge of Paige or if the woman was just that joyous.

“Chocolate covered pretzels,” Paige said, opening the final little package. 

“Salty sweet,” Sylvester said with a grin.

“So, do we get anything, or…” Toby asked.  Paige looked at him in confusion.  “I mean, we met you on that day, too…”

“Did you get anything for me?”

Toby touched his hat.  “Fair enough.”

Paige smiled at Sly, reaching up and wrapping an arm around his neck and kissing his cheek.  “Thank you for helping with this, Sylvester.  I’m…” she looked at all the items on her desk.  “I’m…”

Sylvester kissed her cheek.  “You’re even more whatever you are in a minute.”

Paige blinked.  “What do you mean?”

“Walter is on Skype upstairs.”

Paige grinned, dropping her purse on her chair and heading toward the loft.

“How in the world did you do this and we not know about it?”

“I’d actually be kinda concerned if you did know about it because it would mean you follow me everywhere I go.”

“No, I mean…how did you keep this a secret?”

“It’s not the big thing.”

“Wait, what?”  Happy asked.

“Ah, now she’s interested,” Sylvester said with a smirk.

“What big thing?” Toby questioned, glancing at Happy and then back at Sylvester.

“Actually, Walter doesn’t know either.”

Toby folded his arms.  “What are you talking about?”

Sylvester glanced at the stairway, then stepped around Paige’s desk, getting as close to Happy and Toby as he can.  “Cabe is trying to see if he can get Walter home for a day.”

“No way,” Toby said in a normal speaking voice.

“ _Shhhh_!”

“Syl – vest – er,” Toby said, slowly and deliberately, “Paige cannot hear us.”

“Okay, I know that,” Sylvester said, “but for real, guys, we have to keep this a secret.  She can’t know – neither can he – because there are so many levels to this.  It has to be approved and it has to work within the schedule.  And he might only be here for five or six hours.  If it happens at all.”

“Hey, we can keep it a secret,” Happy said.  “I don’t want to be responsible for the wrath of Paige and Walter if something gets out and then it doesn’t happen.”

“Really?” Toby said.  “ _You’re_ scared of _them_?”

Happy rolled her eyes.


	18. Chapter 18

Paige could feel her heart pounding at what was probably an alarming frequency, but she was too focused on the paper she held in her hand to care.

_Request For Leave_

Walter's name was at the top. Cabe's signature was at the bottom. The date requested was just two days away.

_Walter was coming home to her._

Paige cleared her throat in an attempt to clear her head. It was just a request. She ruffled through the other papers, but found nothing else pertaining to the potential leave. It hadn't been accepted – but it hadn't been denied, either. At least, there was nothing on here that said anything to that effect… _if it was denied, then he wouldn't have this in his papers. So that means it was accepted._

It occurred to Paige that she wasn't supposed to be looking through the papers in the first place. Cabe had them purposefully stacked out of the way, not near the pile that was normally left for her to work through. But it's not like she had been snooping. She saw papers and assumed it was paperwork. That was a large part of her job. She had never  _imagined_  what she would find.

Paige realized she was pacing the floor. Suddenly afraid someone would realize what she'd discovered, she glanced wildly around. No one was in the garage. Happy and Toby had taken a half day. Cabe was out to lunch with Allie. Sylvester and Ralph were out gathering some data for his Ecology class.

Linda. Paige pulled out her phone. She had to tell Linda. She had to tell somebody. Cabe had to have been keeping it a secret from her in case it didn't work out, so it was possible the others knew. But not Linda. Linda wouldn't know. Linda was objective.

Ring.

Ring.

Ring.

Ring.

_You have reached the voicemail box of…_

"No one ever answers their damned phone," Paige muttered to herself, hanging up without leaving a message.

* * *

Paige turned in a slow circle, looking over her shoulder at the mirror.

Although she technically had enough money to buy nice lingerie, she didn't really own all that much. A good portion of her and Walter's physical encounters happened organically, and it was almost impossible to plan ahead and wear sexy underthings. And after their first time together, Paige and Walter both enjoyed when she showed up on their occasional romantic evenings in having already rid herself of most of her clothes.

But damn, did she want his jaw to drop to the floor when he arrived. She wanted his brain to short circuit.

Paige closed her eyes. She wanted Walter's hands to run up her thighs and over her stomach. She didn't want to pull him into her bed with herself already exposed. She wanted to feel him taking these things off of her. She needed his touch.

And while he always said that he thought she looked incredible in anything – and she did believe him – she also knew that he did always particularly enjoy how she looked in black.

She faced the mirror again. She'd put on just a little weight since he left. The panties she had on were a kind that she always felt looked a little awkward on her hips, but they looked absolutely perfect on her now. She smiled. She was definitely buying these.

Changing back into her clothes, she headed for checkout, glancing at her phone. Two texts from Ralph – photos of the items he was observing for his class. Paige glanced at them for what she felt was an appropriate amount of time and texted him back:  _Nice! Hope you guys are having a good time!_  She wondered if she should tell Ralph that Walter was going to be home in just a few days. It was still possible he couldn't come, and she didn't want to get his hopes up.

But her hopes were as high as Everest and she smiled brightly at the cashier as she placed her new items on the counter. Cabe came through. Cabe always came through. And that meant that her Walter was coming home for a day.

Paige swore she floated out of the store, to her car, and all the way home. And despite her exhaustion, she immediately went to work on cleaning the condo. She had told Ralph that Walter leaving wouldn't mean they were going to live in a sty, and they were far from that. But she wanted to welcome him home as best as she could.

It occurred to her as she scrubbed the counter top that she would almost immediately have to say good bye to him again, and she felt a lurch in her throat, going still and staring forward at nothing, tears threatening to well up in her eyes.

She blinked them away. So what? So what if she had to send him off again? She'd get to see him. And she wouldn't trade looking into his eyes and the feel of his arms around her for the world.

Not for the world.


	19. Chapter 19

Linda wiped some dressing from the corner of her mouth.

It was a nice day, and she enjoyed eating outside. As awkward as she was around other people, she did like watching and observing them. It was interesting to see the different dynamics that existed between friends, colleagues, spouses. No one category was even close to the same.

An older man walking over to one of the recycle bins near her made Linda do a double take. She hadn't seen him in a long time, and he was wearing sunglasses, but she knew who he was. She wouldn't ever forget the faces of any of them. Getting to her feet, she walked over and smiled. "Agent Gallo."

"Oh. My. God." His mouth turned up in a smile. "Linda. How are you?"

"I'm good," she said, nodding. "I'm doing really good. How about you?"

"Can't complain about too much," he said. "I hear you and Paige have been talking."

"Yeah." Linda nodded. "I know on paper it'd seem super weird that we're friends, but…" she shook her head. "What can I say. She's a pretty great lady."

"That she is," Cabe said slowly. "That she is."

"You know, yesterday Paige was telling me about how Walter is coming home tonight," Linda said. "That was really awesome of you to do that for…" She trailed off at the look on Cabe's face, realization hitting her almost too quickly for her to process it. "Oh no."

Cabe took off his sunglasses and sighed, putting a hand up and pressing a thumb against one closed eye and his forefinger against the other. "My request was granted initially, but then they rescinded the approval." He looked at Linda. "You're saying that Paige knows? God."

"She…she said she found some papers…" Linda began to wring her hands. This was exactly why she didn't go up to people and talk to them when she hadn't taken the time to prepare first. "Oh no."

Cabe sighed again. "I'll talk to her. Please don't say anything."

Linda thought she might not say anything ever again.

* * *

 

Cabe gave Paige a lot of credit for how she stayed quiet, her lower lip rolled under, her hands clenched together, as he quietly and gently broke the news to her. They were sitting across from each other, away from the rest of the group, where he had led her after he told her that he needed to speak with her about something. He hadn't yet told the rest of the team that Walter wasn't able to come. "Something came up a couple of hours ago and they said they weren't able to let him go. This is why we didn't want you to know, because I can't imagine how hard it must be for you to hear this."

She still sat quietly, but began to nod. She kept on nodding, and after a moment sighed. "Okay."

"I'm so sorry, kid," he said. His heart was aching at the look on Paige's face. "I really wanted to get him back here for a little while."

Paige nodded again, biting her lip. "I understand."

Cabe reached over and put a hand over hers. "Is there anywhere I can take you and Ralph tonight? As a sort of distraction?"

"No," Paige said, shaking her head. "It's okay."

"I would like to try and help you take your mind off of it."

"I appreciate it, Cabe," Paige said, managing a small smile. "I just want to go home and Skype Walter. It's…it's not the same, but…"

"I understand," he said. "But if there's any way I can…"

"I know." Paige lifted a hand and wiped one of her eyes. "I know. I just…I think I need to go home."

She stood, smoothing down her skirt, and turned, heading for her desk. Cabe watched her go, his heart sinking. He hated to see her like this. He hated not being able to help. He could save their lives and get them back up and provide them with jobs, but when it came to things like this, it was like he was destined to always fail. And wasn't  _this_  sort of thing what really mattered?

"Paige?" Toby was leaning on Happy's work station, but straightened up as Paige began to gather her things at her desk. "Paige, what's the matter?"

Paige was putting things into her bag at an ever – increasing rate, biting down on her lip, and not looking at anyone. Cabe walked quickly across the floor.

"Yo, Dineen," Happy said, frowning.

Paige straightened up, not looking at Cabe, but making a gesture in his general direction. "He can save people's lives but can't get Walter home for ten hours." Slinging her purse over her shoulder, she put a hand over her mouth and moved toward the door.

Cabe stopped in his tracks, pressing his lips together and not moving a muscle even after the door shut with a painful thud that echoed its way through his body and settled in the rhythm of his heartbeat.

* * *

 Paige couldn't decide if Walter popping up on her Skype screen made her feel better or worse. "Hey," he said affectionately, smiling so easily that she realized that he must have been kept completely in the dark about what almost happened. She briefly thought about how glad she was that she hadn't said anything to her son.

"Hey," she said quietly, afraid her voice might crack.

Walter frowned. "Something is wrong." He waited a moment, and when she didn't respond he continued, "Paige, what's the matter?"

"I, uh…" Paige drummed her fingers on her leg. "I take it no one told you."

"About  _what_?"

He didn't sound annoyed, only concerned. But Paige was sure it would turn to annoyance if she didn't come out with it already. She had spent years criticizing his inability to communicate and she knew that he didn't like when she hemmed and hawed. She took in a deep breath and sighed before speaking again. "Cabe had requested leave for you. For a day in between jobs, so you could come…so you could come home…" At the word  _home_ , her voice broke. "And it was approved and then they took it back and you would have been home tonight and…and I had started your favorite meal and I can smell it in the other room and I bought some things and I let myself get so excited and now…" Her voice cut off and she put a hand over her mouth. "Walter, I don't think I can do this anymore."

She hadn't been planning to say that. But she wrapped her arms around herself as tears leaked out of her eyes and ran down her cheeks. "Please come home."

Walter didn't speak for a moment – Paige knew he was absorbing both the news that there had been a plan to bring him home and now her request that he actually do so. She hugged herself tighter, hating that they were her arms. "I just need to feel you."

"Paige…" He said, and she could see the conflict on his face. "Paige, I have ten weeks to go."

He could leave. They both knew that. He was only technically committed on a one stop basis. The government would like for him to get to every location they had in mind, but he could get away with stopping early. They would do their best to finish up without him.

"I know," she said, her voice coming out in a whimper. "I know, but…" she didn't realize how hard she was biting down on her lip until she tasted blood. "This is so hard and I thought it would get easier and maybe it was for a little bit like I was getting used to it but now I just…" she had to stop to take a breath.

"I know," Walter said. "I know."

"I love you," she whispered, twisting her upper body side to side, her arms still wrapped tightly around herself. "I'm sorry, I…"

"It's okay," Walter said, sounding confident. "I'll come home."

She lifted her head, consciously aware of her heart beating. "You will?"

"Yeah. I'm traveling to China tomorrow for a discreet meeting with a few undercover agents…and I wasn't supposed to tell you that so you know, but I'll tell them that will be my last stop." He was nodding. "I'll come home. And we won't do this again, okay?"

She wanted to answer, but she reached for a tissue instead, blowing her nose and giving a cough.

"I just wish that there was something I could do that would make you feel better about me."

Paige suddenly felt guilty. "No, Walter. It's not that." She sniffed. "I'm past convincing myself that you'll stop loving me. I just…"

"I miss you too," he said. "It's almost over, Paige. I'll put my notice in as soon as we get off this call."

She managed another small smile despite her tears. "Thank you."

"Of course."


	20. Chapter 20

"Mom?"

Paige turned her head. Ralph was standing behind the couch holding two mugs. They were from an event at the rec center that Paige had taken him two nearly ten years ago now. The activity was making a ceramic mug, with any design they wanted on the side. Paige's had flowers and butterflies on it. Ralph's looked like a child's in the sense that the design was definitely done in a child's hand. But most six year olds did not choose to put scientifically accurate depictions of titanium atoms on their arts and crafts.

Paige smiled. "Hey, baby."

"I made hot chocolate." Ralph handed her the titanium mug. It wasn't a rule, but ever since they brought the mugs home, they always used each other's. Walking around the couch, he sat down, tucking his legs underneath, knees pointed toward his mother. "Walter will be home on Tuesday?"

Paige nodded, reaching up to run one of her hands through her son's hair. "Yeah."

Ralph took a sip of hot chocolate. "I'm glad. I miss him." He hesitated. "I thought it would be easy."

Paige tipped her head to the side. "You did?"

Ralph shrugged. "I mean, I knew it would be hard for us to not have him here. But he's doing really cool computer work and making the world safer, and so I thought that if I just thought about that, that would make it easier."

Paige nodded again. "I suppose that does make sense." She wasn't unappreciative of computers and technology, but Ralph definitely had a passion for them that she never would. She could absolutely see how thinking about all the high – tech projects Walter was working on might make Ralph feel better, at least a little, at least for a while. She looked down at the blanket on her lap, picking at a loose thread. "I'm just glad that he'll be home."

"You were never like this when you and Drew were doing long distance."

Despite his genius, despite all the fascinating ways that his brain worked, Paige never would have guessed that he would remember as much as he did about that time. "We planned that in advance. And at first, I never doubted for a second that he'd come home to us eventually."

"But you don't think Walter's going to stop loving you."

"No." Paige took a sip. The mug was lumpy – both of them were – but she'd drank from it enough times that she knew how not to let the liquid spill over. "Just the idea of him coming home for a day, and then losing that…I had thought that I was used to this. That I still missed him, of course, and it was still hard, but that it was only temporary. But now it's just hard, all over again." She had told Ralph about Walter's almost – visit. She had had to – once she said he was coming home, she had to explain why.

Ralph nodded. "I hate him, you know."

Paige winced when she turned to her son so quickly that hot chocolate sloshed over the lower edge of the mug. "What?"

"Drew."

The relief that Paige felt that her assumption of who Ralph had meant was wrong numbed the pain from the burn on her hand. "Why?"

Ralph looked down. "I was so angry at Walter for hurting you, when he fired you from Scorpion. Because you're always going to be the most important person in my life. But he pushed you away because he was still confused about how to handle his feelings for you. And he made sure you'd never want for anything financially. I'm not saying that he was right to do that. But Drew allowed you two to come apart because he stopped caring. Because of his indifference, we were almost homeless. Obviously, I'm glad that I exist, but…" he shrugged. "Mostly, I hate him because he made you so scared. And that distance is harder for you now. In general. Because of what he did. I think you may not understand how special you and Walter are if you hadn't had to get over Drew, but it also makes you a little codependent. Please don't take offense," he said when Paige frowned. "You're a product of the circumstances that you've had to survive."

Paige gave a breathy laugh and shook her head. "You've been spending a lot of time with Toby, clearly."

Ralph frowned.

"No, don't…" She hesitated, unsure of how to phrase what she wanted to say. "I am taking you seriously. I promise." She looked down into the mug. "Walter understands how much I need him home. And he's willing to drop it all and return." She looked back at her son. "We're really lucky to have him, Ralph."

Ralph put his mug on the coffee table and scooted forward on his knees, shifting his position when he got close and cuddling up to his mom. "He's lucky to have you, too, you know."

Paige leaned forward, placing her mug beside his and then leaning back, putting her arm around him. In just a few days, Walter would be back in this picture. It was going to feel good to have her family all together again.

She must have dozed off, because when she glanced at the DVD player, she noticed it was already time for the late – night news. She reached for the remote, being extra careful to not wake up Ralph. He was never going to be this physically affectionate on a regular basis, and she supposed he were nearing the age when he would start pulling back from it a bit again. She wanted to take all advantage while she could.

 _And we have breaking news out of Iraq this evening,_  the newscaster was saying.  _A local terrorist group has dropped what appears to have been a vacuum bomb on a village near Erbil, killing a feared four hundred civilians in an attempt to assassinate the leader of a peaceful…_

Paige listened to the rest of the segment, and probably the rest of them after that, but when the news was over and she changed the channel to a rerun of  _Walker Texas Ranger_ , she couldn't remember anything from the previous half hour except the beginning of that story.

One of the first things she ever learned about Walter was that he harbored intense guilt over the bombings in Baghdad that killed thousands of innocent people. She'd gotten the impression that he didn't share that story often – especially not with someone who he had just met. She'd already known for hours that there was something special about the potential he had with her son, but it was then that she realized that there was something about her that appealed to him, too. Made him trust her.

Perhaps it was her earlier insistence that  _we save everybody._

Because wasn't that exactly what he always wanted to do?

This bombing near Erbil had nothing to do with the mission Walter was on, as it was an Iraqi terrorist faction attacking the Iraqi people. The United States Military was an outsider. But Walter was on a mission to make the military safer and more reliable, and he still had ten weeks to go.

If he came home early, something would happen at or involving a location that he had been initially scheduled to secure. Maybe not in the next ten weeks, maybe not even within the year, but eventually. Eventually something would happen that he could have prevented –  _would_  have prevented – if he hadn't agreed to come home to her because she loved him so much she couldn't bear to be apart like this any longer. He would feel the crushing, absolutely devastating guilt that he had felt before – that he probably still did feel – regarding the Baghdad bombings of twenty years before. He would carry that guilt with him in everything he did, feeling as if he was shouldering the weight of every victim and feeling as if he deserved that burden. Baghdad had very nearly destroyed him.

How could she put him through that again and call it love?

* * *

Walter answered her Skype request on the third ring, and she could tell by how he was positioned on the screen that he, like her, was lying on his side in bed and on his phone.

She had told Tim to take the job in Jordan, not out of love or selflessness, but because she knew, unconsciously, that that job would be more viable for him than their relationship was. Possibly, also unconsciously, she had intentionally been putting their dynamic to the test. If they could survive that distance, then maybe she should fully commit, think long term, forget about the genius who was still dancing around her heart like the only partner it ever wanted to dance with. Perhaps she had told him to go because she expected them not to survive it.

This was different. And when she finished a summary of her earlier thoughts with "and so, I really do want you to stay until the job is completed," it actually felt good.

Walter gave her a gentle look. "Are you sure that's what you want?"

The version of herself that had dated Tim Armstrong would have snapped back at him  _that is what I said, can we try listening, please?_  But she nodded. "It is. I miss you so much, Walter. I've been sleeping on the couch some nights because to be here without you next to me is too hard. But I love you, and I know that somewhere down the line, if you come home early, you'll resent me for it."

"No, I wouldn't."

"You resented Cabe. You and him were meant to have the relationship you do, so you got past it. But it took a long time. I don't want that to happen with us. And I know that the distance is hard for me and I know it's hard for you too, but…finish this job. Make the world safer. Save all those lives. Wanting that was the first thing we had in common, remember?"

He smiled again. "Of course, of course I remember."

Paige realized it wasn't an hour where most people slept in China. That meant Walter was probably trying to nap in between meetings or sessions. "Well," she said, "I'll let you go. You seem to need sleep."

"Paige?"

"Yeah?"

Walter reached out with his free hand, as if to touch her through the screen. "You're the love of my life."

She grinned. "Right back at you, Genius Boy."

"I'm going to send you the name of a song in the chat. One of the undercover people told me about it – she's long distance with her girlfriend too. Listen to it, okay?"

"Okay."

"Sleep well, Love. And give my love to Ralph."

When he was gone, Paige pulled the song up on her YouTube app, closing her eyes at the serenity of the opening notes.

_It's funny how you sound as if you're right next door, when you're really half a world away._

_I just can't seem to find the words I'm looking for, to say the things that I wanna say._

_I can't remember when I felt so close to you; it's almost more than I can bear._

_And though I seem a half a million miles from you, you are in my heart and living there._

_And the moon and the stars are the same ones you see; it's the same old sun up in the sky._

_And your voice in my ear is like heaven to me, like the breezes here in old Shanghai._

Paige had a smile on her face and tears in her eyes as she listened to the rest of the song.

Then she played it again.


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew, that was a super fun vacation! Although it was actually bad in a way because now I'm obsessed and want to go to Comic Con every year but I definitely can't afford that. Whoops.
> 
> (I also got a tattoo that says "Buckle up, Nerd." I'm 100% serious.)
> 
> Anyway, here's more Here to Stay. Sorry for the delay! I actually started writing this while in the Detroit airport last week, and I just finished and edited it in LAX tonight.

Ralph trailed ten or so feet behind the two women.

He was glad that his mother had a friend. And Linda was a real friend. Linda wasn't someone she worked with and therefore was in close proximity to on a regular basis – because if they were all honest with themselves, Paige and Happy worked together a long time before they both would consider each other a friend. Linda also wasn't a parent of one of Ralph's classmates, who Paige talked to while waiting at the end of the day and while on field trips. There was no practical reason for his mother to spend time with Linda, no obligation, so it must be a real friendship.

"Ralph, please try to keep up," Paige said, turning over her shoulder and smiling. "We don't want to lose you in the crowd."

"Mom, there's five other people in this store. And while there is a popular saying that suggests only three people is a crowd, I really don't think we can define the…"

Paige snapped her fingers and pointed beside her. Ralph picked up his pace. Paige was very verbal. If she was instructing him silently, that was a clear sign that he was pushing it.

He missed Walter. He knew his mom did too, but the purpose of this outing – to find Halloween costumes – was having the opposite effect on him than it was on Paige. She viewed this as a way of proving, to Ralph and to herself, that things could go on as normal. To her, it was a moment of strength, of not letting family time fall apart because one part of their family wasn't there.

To Ralph, it was just yet another holiday that he wasn't spending with two parents.

"Halloween isn't traditionally considered a family holiday," Daniel had typed out to him. The other boy had been trying to help.

"I know," Ralph had said, "but it was father daughter time when my mom was little, and so it's always been more of a family thing for us. I didn't have a lot of friends growing up…shut up," he'd said when Daniel cocked a brow. "I didn't have a _ny_  friends growing up, so it was a me and my mom thing. She told me that Drew went with us once when I was a baby. But I don't remember that. There is a picture though. She went as a cheerleader, he as a pitcher, and I was a baseball. We look stupid."

Daniel had grinned.

"Ralph."

His mother's voice jolted him back to the present. "Hmmm?"

"How about this?"

She was holding a one piece costume, with vertical white and black stripes of different lengths with a single white spot in the center.

Linda cocked her head. "You want him to go as a bar code?"

"No," Paige said with a little laugh. "It's a visual representation of the Doppler Effect."

"Okay, you lost me."

"The Doppler Effect is the apparent change in frequency of a wave as the source and observer move in relation to one another, either closer or farther away. Could be light, sound, or otherwise. This costume was used on a television show a dozen years ago."

"The Big Bang Theory," Paige said to Linda.

"Oh!" Linda nodded. "I remember now. Yeah, Ralph, you should wear this. Sheldon's a genius just like you."

"He's not just like me. His I.Q. is one eighty seven. Mine is two hundred."

"Ralph," Paige said, "be nice. You know what Linda meant."

Ralph folded his arms and looked off to the side. "Sorry."

"Do you want me to go?" Linda asked suddenly. "I can go over to the coffee place and you guys can come get me when you're done…"

"Linda, you don't have to do that," Paige said quickly. She looked at Ralph. "Unless…"

"No, it's okay." Ralph shoved his hands in his pockets. "I'm glad you have a friend, Mom."

Paige didn't exactly frown, but she looked confused. "O – okay. Uh, so, do you want this costume? Or…we could keep looking…oh, there might be a…"

"No no!" Ralph said quickly. He shook his head, pointing at the Doppler Effect costume. "That's admittedly very me.

* * *

Paige watched as her son stared through the window at the robotics demonstration. It wasn't anything fancy, just a machine of some sort encased in a glass box doing a few movements on loop. Certainly nothing too complex even for the average adult, much less her child. But he always enjoyed these things, these little pieces of him, albeit simplified and on display, in the normal, every day world.

"I don't know why he was so moody today," Paige said, glancing at Linda. "I'm sorry. You've seen how polite and sweet he can be. I really don't know what got in to him."

Linda blinked. She didn't say a word, but her expression was so obvious she may as well have said "really?" out loud. Paige frowned. "What?"

"Hmmm?" Linda raised her eyebrows, then cleared her throat, her face taking on a more neutral expression. "Nothing."

"Yes. Something. What do you know? Did he say something to you?"

"Ralph? No." Linda bit her lip. "But I'm pretty sure he doesn't like me being here."

"Linda," Paige said, "don't think like that. He's a genius, he…he expresses himself differently than some others. Walter is like that too. They give off impressions that they don't mean."

"No," Linda said, "I'm sure of it. You've never given details, but you've said enough to know that Halloween has some familial attachment to it for you and Ralph and Walter. And I don't know what your traditions are or how long they've been going on, but it seems Ralph doesn't like that I'm the other adult on this excursion."

"You're saying he resents you?" Paige frowned. "I know he had some issues with the person I dated before Walter, but he has to know that you and I aren't a thing."

"He doesn't think I'm threatening your relationship," Linda said. "At least, he's a smart kid and I assume he knows that. But if another adult was tagging along on something important to my family when a member of that family wasn't there, it may still feel like a replacement. And an inadequate one at that."

Paige folded her arms. "I guess I can see where you're coming from. Though you sound a lot like Toby," she added with a laugh.

Linda looked at her. Paige sighed. "And Toby is usually right."

Linda briefly laid her head on Paige's shoulder, then straightened up and smiled at her. "I'm so glad we've become friends, Paige. But I think I should spend less time with you when Ralph is around."

Paige smirked. "You're breaking up with me?"

"I know, how dare I, I mean, we aren't even a thing."

"Exactly. Bitch."

Linda laughed. So did Paige. "Well," Linda said after a moment, "I'm going to take off, got to get to the post office anyway, and they close early on Saturdays."

"Okay. Text me next time you want to get lunch, okay?" Paige said with a smile.

"Will do."

When she was gone, Paige crossed the mall hallway and came up to stand behind her son. "Can you explain it to me?"

Ralph looked up at her, an eyebrow raised playfully. "Can I?"

"Will you?"

He grinned. "Sure."


	22. Chapter 22

Walter accepted the Skype call mere seconds after Paige sent it, and her jaw dropped when she saw him. "Oh, wow!"

He raised his eyebrows. "Yes, Paige. It is in fact me."

She rolled her eyes. "No, that's not what…Ralph, come here!"

"What's your costume?" Walter asked, cocking his head to the side.

"Oh." Paige gestured over to the living room, even though she knew Walter couldn't see it. "I'm going as a college student who is ready for her final presentation. Ralph's the…presentation," she clarified, realizing that that wasn't enough information.

"And Ralph is dressed as…" Paige smiled when her son stepped into view and Walter fell silent. Ralph, however, had the same response as his mother. "Oh, wow!"

"Wow, indeed," Walter said with a broad smile, touching the shoulder of his own Doppler Effect costume.

Paige loved the big grin she saw on her son's face. He used to – and, if she was honest still did – dress up like Walter because of how much he idolized him. Them accidentally matching Halloween costumes from thousands of miles away was just another sign to her that Walter was meant to be in their family.

"You look like a pretty good presentation, Ralph," Walter was saying. Paige realized several minutes had gone by. It had been a while since she'd been so lost in the relationship between Walter and Ralph that she spaced right out of conversation.

"Thanks, Walter," Ralph said with a smile. "I wish you were here. We're going trick or treating in a bit."

"You and your mom?"

"For the trick or treating, yeah," Ralph said. "Then we're going to the garage for a party."

"Is everyone else dressing up?"

"Yeah. Cabe and Allie are going to be some iconic television couple that I'm unfamiliar with."

"I could tell you who," Paige said, leaning down so her face was in the camera, "but you wouldn't know either."

"Try me."

"Cordell Walker and Alexandra Cahill."

"Alright."

The completely blank look that accompanied his response made Paige laugh. "From Walker, Texas Ranger. It was on like, oh gosh, had to be almost twenty years ago now."

"Mmmph."

"Sylvester is going as Rumbling Ronnie, the newest Super Fun Guy character," Ralph said. "He said he chose him because a lot of the Super Fun Guy fandom is rejecting him because he's not one of the originals, but it's important to accept everyone for the talents and strengths that they have, even if they aren't part of an original story."

Paige smiled. She hadn't been entirely sure Ralph was listening when Sylvester was explaining his choice of a costume.

"What about Happy and Toby? I assume they're participating as well."

"They're characters from Firefly," Ralph said. "Because that show had a female mechanic and male doctor. The character Happy is dressing up as isn't really all that much like her, but Toby was so excited about the idea – and Happy had nixed any costume ideas from him that included "sexy" in the name – that she relented fairly quickly. She always gets really happy when he lights up like that. You know."

Paige stifled a chuckle. Her son had a humorously perfect balance of picking up on the emotions of other people and understanding them while also being relatively disinterested.

"It almost feels like I'm there," Walter said, his smile looking slightly sad.

"Just two more months," Paige said, her tone coming out slightly hopeful.

"Yeah. Two more months. And then the world will be safe enough that I won't have to do this again."

Paige knew that he was being reassuring, but the idea of him having to leave again for that long – even being stated as a near impossibility – made her want to curl up in a ball and hibernate until he came home.

"I miss you," Ralph said.

"I miss you too," Walter replied. "Both of you."

"Happy Halloween, Walter," Paige said with a smile. Then she cocked her head. "Is it still Halloween where you are?"

Walter's eyes dropped to where the time display would be on his laptop. "For another couple hours."

"Then yeah, Happy Halloween!"

"Happy Halloween," Walter said. "Can you two stand together and smile? I want to screenshot this so the people who were giving me crap about this costume can see that Ralph is wearing it too."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any Firefly fans reading this fic can go ahead and decide for yourselves if Happy's Kaylee costume is the overalls or the dress. I was considering writing a brief scene at the party but I wanted to leave that to the imagination. ; )


	23. Chapter 23

"I win."

"Wait." Sylvester cocked his head to the side. "How?"

"This is my second monopoly, and since there's only four, but I have all the corporations, you can't win."

"I feel like they shouldn't call it a monopoly when it isn't Monopoly," Cabe said, peering over the counter to the game board.

Allie bumped his shoulder with her coffee cup. "You do know that monopolies are a real thing, right?"

Paige and Sylvester smirked at each other. Then the math whiz frowned and studied the board. "I can't have just lost. I'm good at every strategy game."

Paige shrugged. "Maybe you're not so good at this one."

"I'm not so sure I like your sass."

"I made everyone lunch today, you can deal with it."

"Damn," Cabe said lightheartedly, grinning at them. "This was really fun, you guys."

Paige agreed. The previous day, they'd had to have Walter help them on a case remotely from "somewhere in North Africa." After the case, she'd noticed that the rest of them had seemed rather dejected.

" _It's like we could mask how much we miss him when he's just completely not around, but when he helps us like he did today…it made everything come rushing back."_

Paige had understood Sylvester's words. She knew there had been similar feelings wafting around in the month when she'd been working for Richard Elia.

So after their work was done today, it had been a game night of sorts – a game mid afternoon. Things were wrapping up now – she had a Skype date with Walter in a bit anyway – but Sylvester had demanded a rematch of the strange capitalistic game that Walter had sent her from Europe.

"Well, the missus and I have to get going," Toby said. "We're going to, well, ah…"

Happy elbowed him. "We're going out for dinner, you doof, stop implying dirty stuff."

"Will dirty stuff follow dinner?"

"We're not discussing that in mixed company."

 _That means it will,_  he mouthed. Happy rolled her eyes, a smirk on her face.

"Well, we are going to clear out too," Cabe said.

Allie's eyes bugged out of her head. "Cabe Gallo!"

"What?"

He looked so genuinely confused that Paige started to laugh. "Cabe," she said, "Allie thinks you just announced you two are heading out for what Happy and Toby are going to be up to after dinner."

"O – oh." Cabe's cheeks turned pink. "Uh…"

Allie laughed, resting her head on his shoulder. "You're so adorable."

"Uh, yeah, heh," Cabe said, clearing his throat. The way his brow furrowed when he did it reminded Paige of Walter. She never saw any of Sean in Walter.

* * *

Walter glanced at the Skype counter in the corner of the screen. He and Paige had been talking – laughing and talking – for nearly forty minutes now. It was both the fastest and shortest forty minutes that he could remember in a long time.

"I really miss you, Walter," Paige said.

It was the second time she had said that during this call – the first being when they had first connected. He wondered if she was feeling insecure again. He hoped not. He didn't want her to think he was acting on a need to get her to stop bothering him with her worry. "I miss you too. So much."

Paige nodded, and he heard her sigh quietly.

"You don't still worry about us making it, do you?"

"No," Paige said, shaking her head. "No, I promise. I'm just looking forward to when we're together again. You helping us with the case today was…nice. And I just can't wait until it's the normal thing again"

"Me too." Walter shifted in his seat. "Uh…not entirely off topic, but…there was something I had considered bringing up before I left. But I didn't think it was appropriate at the time."

Paige cocked her head. "Okay."

Walter hesitated again. He didn't want to have this conversation over Skype. But he also didn't want to wait another two months. He was consumed by it, every time he talked to her, or even saw her picture. He cleared his throat. "I'm going to love you forever. You know that, right?"

She smiled, her voice soft. "Yeah, Walter. I know that." She tipped her head slightly to the side. "I'm gonna love you forever, too."

Walter cleared his throat again. "I'd like, uh…" He frowned, reaching up to rub the back of his neck. "I would like to get married. After I get home. If…if you want to. Too."

Paige looked a bit taken aback, which Walter supposed he should have expected. He had basically sprung this on her. He wanted to open his mouth and explain his logic, that he'd been thinking about it for a while, and if they love each other, getting married was the obvious next step, and he couldn't imagine ever loving anyone even close to the way he loved her and so marriage wasn't only a logical arrangement but was something he actively wanted to do…but he knew his rambling almost never helped matters, so he bit his tongue and stayed silent.

Thankfully, it didn't take long for Paige to respond. "You do?"

He nodded. "Yeah."

The smile was back on her face. "You going to bring me a ring home, or…"

"I was thinking when I'm back we could pick one out together. That way, you will be sure to like it. I must confess…although this isn't a surprise I suppose…that I'm not the best at picking out jewelry. I can look up on the internet what is most popular or elegant, but I don't have a statistic that accounts for personal taste."

Paige folded her arms, looking at him playfully. "Are you still going to go down on one knee when we find it?"

"Do you know why men get down on one knee to propose?"

"No," she said, looking thoughtful. "Why?"

Walter blinked, realizing she probably thought he was quizzing her. "I don't know. That's why I was asking you."

Paige cocked her head. "I did learn in my history classes at the community college that men used to drop to their knee in front of women they respected or revered. So maybe it's to show humility."

"Plus if they went on two knees it would look like begging."

Paige laughed. "I suppose you're right."

"So is that something you'd want to do?" Walter asked.

"Marry you, or have us get the ring together?"

"Uh…"

She giggled. "Yes to both, Walter. And an especially big yes to the first part."

He knew he was grinning from ear to ear. He always thought he looked like an idiot when he did that. But he didn't care. He was  _her_  idiot.


	24. Chapter 24

_I am getting married._

_I am marrying Walter O'Brien._

_I am marrying the love of my life._

_Walter is going to be my husband and I'm going to be his wife._

Paige glanced around the garage for at least the tenth time that hour. She and Walter had been too busy reveling in each other the previous night for them to talk about whether or not they were going to tell the team before she had a ring. Ralph did know – Paige had asked Walter if he thought they should tell him and he responded that he'd talked to Ralph the previous week. "I had to ask his permission," Walter had said. "I know it's traditional to ask the father, but even if yours was still alive, Ralph would still be more appropriate."

So Ralph knew. But she wished she could tell the others. She wanted to tell everyone she came into contact with. All of the parents of Ralph's friends. Linda.  Her former co – workers, especially Nemos. She even wanted to tell her mother.

But even more than she wanted to tell all of those people, Paige wished she could tell her younger self – the terrified, heartbroken twenty – two – year – old who had a special needs toddler, no money, and who had just come to the painful realization that her child's father didn't love her anymore. She wanted to pull that broken woman into her arms and tell her it was going to be okay, that Drew wasn't the one, that as hard as it might be for her to believe someone was on his way who was better for her, who she would love even more than she loved the man she was currently longing for. Who would love her son with just as much ferocity as she did.

"Paige."

She looked up – and up, since she was in her desk chair – to see Sylvester looking down at her, a smile on his face, looking as if he was expecting something. "What's…what's going on, Sly?"

"Oh. Nothing."

It definitely wasn't nothing. His smile had quickly morphed into that dorky grin on his face that was impossible for him to hide. Paige turned toward him, folding her hands in her lap. "Sylvester."

"Well, you know," he said, "I just wanted to…be the first to…say congratulations."

"Congra…" Paige leaned back slightly, realization dawning on her as she realized that nothing else would warrant that word. "Wait, how do you know?"

"You're not the only one who Walter talks to, you know," Sylvester said.

"He told you?"

"He talked to me two days ago, on that weird secure phone of his. Said that he really wanted to ask you and didn't know if he could wait until he got home. Wanted to see if it was appropriate to ask you over Skype. And he wanted to know how I did it with Megan."

"Yeah?" Paige asked, a small smile slowly making its way over her face.

"Yeah. Which made things a little awkward because the answer to that question is  _Meg, I figured out a way to make sure you keep control of your care. If we get married, then I have say over Walter, and I'll do whatever your wishes are._  But you know."

"Whoa whoa whoa, wait." Paige and Sylvester looked toward where Toby and Happy were standing. The behaviorists' eyebrows were almost to his hat. "Did Walter propose?"

Sylvester glanced back at Paige. "Oops."

"Oh my gosh!" Toby said, crossing the room and bending, throwing his arms around Paige and staggering forward when the momentum pushed her rolling chair backward. "Congratulations, Paige!"

"Well, thanks," Paige said, feeling her cheeks grow pink. "I uh, I don't have a ring or anything, and I…I don't know if Walter wanted to tell you all until we took care of that, but…"

"Paige, Paige, Paige," Toby said. "You know as well as the rest of us do that that man would do anything for you and if you wanted us to know, he would not give a crap when you told us."

Paige supposed Walter was right. She knew he had been incredibly eager to tell Ralph when the two of them had gotten together, but he had been completely willing to let her make the decision as to when and how they would tell him. That had ended up being a moot point as he'd found out for himself less than five minutes later, but the intent was what was important.

She was suddenly aware that both men were absolutely beaming down at her. "Don't you have some work to do?" She asked, self – conscious.

"We'll get right to it, Mrs. O'Brien," Toby said, tipping his hat.

Paige rolled her eyes. "Shut up."

Toby grinned, heading toward the loft, and Sylvester followed. Paige cocked her head in confusion.

"They've got that new whiteboard up there," Happy said, crossing the room and watching the two of them go. "I'm sure they're calculating something stupid."

Paige laughed. "Like that time they calculated Walter's movements around the garage based on if Tim Armstrong and I were talking to each other? Easy," she said at Happy's deer in the headlights look. "I may not be a genius, but I'm not stupid. All I had to do was go back up there when they weren't around and look at the board. And I was up there a lot that week Walter was recovering."

"Huh." Happy cocked her head. "I have to say I'm surprised you didn't snap at them for it."

"Snap at them?"

"Yeah. I mean, you were kind of a bitch when the Navy dude was around."

Paige pressed her lips together and drew in a breath. She still hated herself for how she reacted to the geniuses at times during the three – month period Tim was with Team Scorpion. But that was so long ago now. There was no point in bringing it up again. "Look, it's well established that I was in complete denial about my feelings for Walter then. And I was annoyed with him for not being the guy I'd always envisioned myself ending up with. If I focused too much on that damn whiteboard, I'd have ended up completely hating myself and probably would have taken it out on you guys even more. Why are we even talking about this, Happy?"

Happy shrugged. "I just feel if you're gonna marry one of my best friends I gotta go back to the lowest point in your relationship and make sure that resentment isn't still there."

"I swear, Happy, we don't even think about that anymore. I love him, he loves me. There's no lingering resentment. If anything else we're just sad that we didn't have the extra time together. You know, like how on How I Met Your Mother when Ted said he wished he could have those days with Tracy that he almost had because he almost met her a month before he…"

"No no. Ted was a piece of trash. Terrible comparison. Go with Betty White wishing she'd accepted her husband's proposal the first time so they would have been married longer."

"You are surprisingly on point with these pop culture references."

"I'm lucky. This happens to be a conversation that what I do know can be used." Happy cleared her throat. "So."

"So?"

"So I'm Maid of Honor, right?"

Paige folded her arms and raised her eyebrow playfully. "This coming from the woman who just called me a bitch?"

"I'm honest. You don't want a dishonest person in your wedding party."

"Fair enough – this coming from the woman who didn't ask me to be hers?"

"You still were, though," Happy said.

Paige cocked her head slightly. She had reminded Happy that she wasn't her Maid of Honor in a joking tone, and the younger woman had suddenly gotten so serious. "Wait. What?"

"I know you were technically Toby's Best Ma'am. But on the day of the wedding? You were with me when I got ready. We had that heart to heart. And that felt right for some reason. And Walter was off with Toby. Somewhere along the line you became my Maid of Honor, and Walter became Toby's Best Man. And it fit. It worked. I wouldn't have had it any other way, Dineen. And that's the truth."

Paige smiled. "It really  _was_  an honor, Happy. And I would be completely honored all over again if you would be mine."

Happy smiled that smile that she got when she was thrilled about something but was trying to stay calm about it. "Cool."


	25. Chapter 25

Walter slid his hand up his body, wiping sweat from his brow with the back of it. The room felt too hot, but he didn't have an individual thermostat in the unit. He supposed he ought to have gone down the hall and turned it down before Paige called. He could attempt to make the excuse that he couldn't have known just how wound she had been, but that would be a lie. He'd spent the past couple of nights struggling to sleep with thoughts of her with him swirling around in his head.

On the other side of the web cam, she was gasping as well, rolling onto her side and grabbing from the stack of tissues on the bedside table, wiping off her fingers. "Oh God," she breathed, rolling back to face him, her body flushed. "I can't wait until we're able to do this in person."

Walter nodded, attempting to regulate his breathing. "Me too. Me too." He shifted the laptop, lifting his hips to pull his boxers back up over them. "I wish it wasn't another six weeks. This is nice, but…"

"But it sucks." Paige nodded, slipping a lock of hair back behind her ear. "I know I'll feel better for a week or so and then it's all going to come back again. Wanting you."

"I'll be lucky if I'm okay for a week," Walter admitted. "I see these sailors here on leave that are going off with women and men from this town and I start craving you. Terribly."

Paige shook her head slowly. "Six more weeks. We can do this."

"But it sucks."

She gave a little laugh. "Yeah. Exactly."

"So what are you up to?" He asked, rolling onto his side and setting the laptop on the oddly soft mattress.

"I'm trying to plan Thanksgiving. Surprisingly it's going well. People aren't as cynical as they used to be. I think it's because we all miss you. It makes us extra thankful for each other."

Walter was glad of that. One thing he used to pretend he found annoying about Paige was her obsession with family holidays. She did it because of her own broken family. When she found a new one, she was desperate for all of them to fully appreciate each other. Knowing that the rest of the cyclone seemed enthusiastic and supportive about her plans for Thanksgiving made him happy.

But he absolutely hated that he was going to spend Thanksgiving without the people that made him actually give a fiddle about it. And if this was how he felt about Thanksgiving, how on Earth was he going to make it through Ralph's birthday? How was he going to make it through Christmas?

"At least when Christmas rolls around," Paige said, as if she'd read his mind, "you will just be five days from coming home." She smiled. "I actually, well, Sly and I, we've been talking about postponing our yearly Christmas celebration until you come home."

"Is this because you want to be free for the inevitable Christmas Day Case, or because you want to wait for that to pop up once I'm home so I can help?" Walter joked. "Because those are usually a doozy."

Paige rolled her eyes. "Shut up."

"Okay. Bye."

"Walter!" She was giggling as he stopped closing his laptop and pushed the top back again. "You don't get to get rid of me that easily."

"Same to you. Seeing as I continue to pester you with Skype calls after all these months apart."

"And don't you dare stop," she said, and Walter smirked. "What?"

"You said that about ten minutes ago?"

Paige lifted her eyebrows and bit her lower lip. "That's right, I did."

God. She could slip right back into it just like that. Walter made a low noise in the back of his throat, and he could tell by the way Paige shifted her weight that she heard it. "Seems like you're not done with me tonight either, huh?"

"I wish you were here," he said, his voice dropping low.

"Six weeks," she said, her eyelids drooping. "Six weeks, and then, oh, and then…"

Walter groaned as she started talking about all the things they would do when they were together again, his hand sliding back down.


	26. Chapter 26

"Those are some incredible pictures," Paige said. "And she's going to be in the Netherlands until Christmas, you said?"

"Until December fifteenth," Linda replied. "She wouldn't miss Christmas at home for the worl…" she trailed off. "I mean, she's just on vacation. It's different when it's for work."

Paige smiled. "I know. I appreciate it, though."

Linda shook her head. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry." Paige would be lying if she said she wasn't just a little bit jealous that Linda's mother was going to be home for Christmas when Walter would be anywhere else in the world but Los Angeles, but she would be a terrible person if she was upset at Linda for being glad that she'd have her mom with her. Paige knew they were incredibly close. If her father was still alive, she'd be looking forward to the holidays with him just as much. "I do love seeing those pictures. I've been all over the world with Team Scorpion, but there isn't exactly a lot of time for sight – seeing. That would be such a cool experience to be able to have."

"I know, right?" Linda said. "I'm envious of her. She said that maybe one day when I'm not so bogged down by work – her words – the two of us could go." She gave a little laugh. "Bogged down by work. That's a joke. What she really means to say is what I do pays barely enough for me to get by and so I can't afford to miss any of it. She's just putting it in a nice, encouraging way because that's what parents do."

"That's a big part of the job," Paige admitted, "but as a parent, I've found that it's not all that difficult. Because people have so much potential, it's easy, when you love them, to want to help foster that potential into something great."

"Easy for you to say. You've got a kid that's going places. I'm a mess."

"No you aren't."

"You don't have to Mom me, Paige," Linda said with a laugh. "I'm three years older than you."

"I'm not," Paige insisted, "I'm just saying, I struggled for a while, and I felt like a mess a lot of that time. It's easy to get down on yourself. I was probably depressed for a while there. But a good support system can make such a huge difference, and I know you've got one in your mom, and you've got one in me, too." She smiled. "I'm really glad we became friends."

Linda smiled. "Me too."

"Good. And you know, I really appreciate all the Thanksgiving help. The team, they're great, but they aren't the best at planning things like this. I know Allie would help, but for some reason that feels weird to me. Like it'd be planning with my mom, and…and that's not something I ever did with my mom. I just feel like it would be awkward."

"Well, I'm completely down to help make this a wonderful Thanksgiving," Linda said. "I found this great recipe for vegetarian stuffing that I can bring with the pie."

Paige froze. "Bring?"

"Now I know most of the team eats meet, but Allie doesn't, right? This is delicious and it would give her more options, for sure. It always sucks to be the only person with a dietary restriction at a big family event."

"Oh…" Paige nodded, suddenly feeling uncomfortable. "Yeah. Yeah, that's a good idea."

Linda looked at her with a confused expression that suddenly turned to horror. "Oh gosh, oh my gosh, I'm s – s – sorry," she stammered, wiping her hands on her jeans. "I didn't mean…I didn't…I wasn't…or, uh, I shouldn't have expected that I'd be invited."

Paige felt horrible. She'd been asking for recipe ideas and had even accepted Linda's offer to make pumpkin pie. Why wouldn't the older woman assume that she was going to be spending Thanksgiving at the garage? Especially since her mother was out of the country? And who was Paige to take advantage of a friend like that, even without realizing it?

"I'm sorry," Linda said again. "I'm…I'm so embarrassed, I always do this, I…maybe, you know what, I think maybe I should go…"

Thankfully, working with Scorpion for years had taught her how to think fast, and this was one of the easiest problems that she'd ever had to solve. "Linda," she said, trying to look confused as she reached a hand up to prevent the woman from leaving. "You  _are_  invited. I just hadn't put much thought into vegetarian options for Allie, so I'm glad you brought that up."

Linda looked at her, biting her lip anxiously. Paige stood up. "Linda, I swear. I'm sorry I got a funny look on my face there. I've just been so preoccupied with my usual Thanksgiving recipes that, like of course!" She bumped her forehead with the heel of her hand. "More food items without meat! Duh!"

Linda sat back down. "I'm sorry. For getting all flustered, I mean. I'm so horrible with social interaction. Maybe that's why I suck at my job. I can fake it for a while but then I just…" She looked away. "I'm sorry. You're going through all this stuff and I'm just here lamenting myself."

Paige giggled.

Linda looked back at her and frowned. "What?"

"I'm sorry, that just…you saying you were lamenting yourself reminded me of college when I failed a math test. I came into the room and my roommate asked how the test had gone, and I said terrible, and I was just going to go into the shower and loathe myself. And she got this uncomfortable look on her face and told me that that was too much information."

Linda's eyes grew wide and she pressed her lips together. It was clear that she was trying not to laugh.

Paige grinned. "I am dead serious."

Linda put her hand over her mouth. "Oh my God."

"So, you know," Paige said, "please don't lament yourself in my condo."

* * *

 

"Do you guys have any special Thanksgiving traditions?"

Ralph shook his head. "I mean, we do the whole family dinner thing, which obviously has gotten bigger since we fell in with Team Scorpion. But it's not like Halloween, where we have anything going on that is different from everyone else."

Daniel's fingers flew over his iPad. "My family does something weird."

"Oh yeah?"

Daniel nodded as he typed his response. "Yeah. Do you want to hear about it?"

"Always."

Daniel smiled, holding up a finger to ask Ralph to wait a moment. Ralph nodded.

Daniel and the other kids in the level of school expected for their age still had one day of school left before Thanksgiving break. Ralph did not have any Tuesday afternoon classes this semester, and his Wednesday class was cancelled, so he was already off. But he knew his mom would be working hard on meal planning, and he also knew that she wouldn't let him help until Thursday, so he walked the four blocks between his college and the middle school after his class to have lunch outside with Daniel.

"Okay," came the voice from the iPad. "My family thinks that Thanksgiving is Christmas. In a way. Like you know how religious people tell the story of Jesus' birth every Christmas? Every year at Thanksgiving my family reads the story of the pilgrims and the Native Americans. People play certain characters and everything, just like the play they do in churches for Christmas."

"Is it accurate?" Ralph asked. "Like, does the story continue on to talk about how feasts of thanksgiving were held every time there was a massacre of Native Americans until the 1860s when Abraham Lincoln just decided instead of feasting every time we killed them it was easier to just set a day aside each year?"

Daniel stared at him. "Holy shit," came from the iPad.

"Daniel!" Warned a lunch lady from a few tables away.

Daniel smirked at Ralph, his pointer finger tapping a few times. "Oops."


	27. Chapter 27

Paige stepped inside the garage and extended a leg backward, using her ankle to keep the door open for Linda. The older woman scooted inside, immediately stopping and lowering the boxes to the floor. "Whew."

"Sorry. I really loaded you up with that stuff, didn't I?"

"Just enough so I couldn't see where I was going."

"But we made it in one trip!" Paige said, raising her hand for a high five. "So yay for efficiency!"

"I thought Walter wasn't back until the end of next month?" Linda joked. "So where are we putting this stuff?"

"Smartass. Also, your boxes can go on that table over there, except the top one, I need it over here, then my three will go in the kitchen."

"Okay." Linda picked up her bottom two boxes and walked across the room, settling them on one of the desks.

"Linda!" Paige called, shaking her head. "Table. Not desk."

"Huh?"

"Over there. Look where I'm pointing."

"Oh." Linda picked up the boxes. "My bad."

Paige rolled her eyes playfully. "You're such a dingbat."

"Dingbat. I'd be hurt, but that's such a fun word."

"Ha, I suppose. Wonder where that word even comes from. Like how do people come up with these things and decide what they mean?" Paige wondered aloud, walking over and starting to take things out of the boxes.

"Oh, I actually know this!" Linda said, looking excited. "So basically, you know those big bell towers, Hunchback of Notre Dame, all of that? So bats live in those. And they go up by the bell and hang themselves upside down and go to sleep. Well in the evenings when they wake up, sometimes they're all disoriented, not sure where they are, you know, and so they would just…fly. And they'd slam into the bell, and it would go ding, ding, ding."

Paige blinked. "Wait, really?"

"Yeah. The sad part is, they'd sometimes their heads so hard they would die. And they'd fall, fall, fall, all the way down to the bottom, and they'd land, and the rats are down there, you know, and so one rat says to the other rat, do you know who that is? And the other rat responds, no, I don't know his name, but his face rings a bell, and…"

"That is so not true!" Paige exclaimed, putting a hand on the table to steady herself as the other one came up to cover her mouth as she laughed. "Linda!"

Linda was giggling. "I really had you going for a second there, huh?"

Paige swatted her with the towel she held in her hand. "So you don't actually know where the word comes from."

"Not a clue."

"You're so helpful."

"When are the others getting here?" Linda asked.

"I'm not sure about tomorrow," Paige said. "I want us to eat around one, so I'm hoping they'll get here at least an hour or two earlier to help, but who knows. I think at least Cabe and Allie will be here early. Who knows about Quintis."

"They don't help out?"

"Oh they do, but they also have their own little rituals for holidays. Tomorrow's will probably involve Happy dressing up as a pilgrim or something."

Linda wrinkled her nose. "I don't think I want to know any details."

"Well, then you may want to stay away from them tomorrow. Toby can make a lot of those wink wink comments."

"Well, I suppose that it's neat that that's their dynamic." Linda fell silent a moment. "It's nice that all of you guys have someone. I mean, other than Sylvester."

"Yeah, but there's a difference between being alone and being lonely," Paige said. "Sylvester never really cared about having a romantic relationship with anyone. Then Megan came along and everything was different."

"Kinda like Walter, then," Linda said. "With you."

"Not quite the same thing. He dated Janice, he dated you."

"He dated me because he wanted to date you but didn't think he could. He was looking for what he wanted with you with someone else and didn't realize that that isn't something you can substitute."

Paige agreed with Linda, but she didn't want to touch that. She didn't know how to without it coming off wrong. Clearing her throat, she continued, "he dated Janice before he knew me. He didn't think love was real, but he saw enough people in relationships that he felt like he needed to at least have basic knowledge of what a relationship was about. Sylvester didn't even care. The interest wasn't there, even from an intellectual point of view. Then he had Megan, and they loved each other, and they lived with no regrets. And now that she's gone, he misses her, but he doesn't care to get into another relationship with someone else. If it happens again, I don't think he'd be opposed to it, but he doesn't crave that companionship. He's not looking for it. So yeah, I have Walter, Happy and Toby have each other, and so do Cabe and Allie, but Sly, as far as he's concerned, still has Megan."

"I suppose that makes a lot of sense," Linda said. "Sylvester isn't lonely. Not…" she trailed off, and when she finished her sentence, her voice was quiet. "Not like me."

"Hey." Paige put her arm around Linda's waist. "You've got your friends. Your mom. All of those relationships are important and can be fulfilling. I don't know how I would be getting through this time Walter is gone without my friends. Without you."

Linda got a weird look on her face. "So what happens when Walter comes home?"

"What do you mean?"

"Am I your replacement?"

"What?"

"When we were in the store looking for Halloween costumes for Ralph. I said I was worried that he was viewing me as some temporary replacement for Walter."

"And that's ridiculous. You're not Walter. He knows that."

"Yeah. But do you?"

"What? Linda, you're being ridiculous."

"You're always telling me how much you appreciate me keeping you company while Walter is gone. So what happens when Walter comes home, Paige? Am I just someone to fill your time? Will I even see you after the end of next month?"

Paige wanted to get mad, but the tears welling up in Linda's eyes were preventing her from forming words. "I…"

Linda shook her head. "I'm sorry, I have to…" She took a few steps toward the bathroom, then spun on her heel and headed for the door.

Paige recognized her gait. She was in a panic, hurrying to leave the situation before she lost control in front of someone.

Paige wanted to follow.

But she was frozen to the floor.


	28. Chapter 28

Eventually, Paige managed to get herself moving, but all the managed was to pace the floor, her pace increasing until she was panting, but she only stopped, paused with her hand on her desk for support, for a moment or two before she was walking again, slower this time, but still fueled by anxiety and dread.

She jumped when she heard the garage door open, looking over without having a clue as to who it might be. She wasn't sure if she was disappointed or relieved when Sylvester grinned over at her. "Hey, I'm here to help!"

"I really messed up. Like…like a lot."

Sylvester looked surprised. Paige didn't blame him. She certainly hadn't expected that to come out of her mouth either. "Uh," Sylvester said. "I was more so talking about Thanksgiving prep, but…if you need some sort of advice, I suppose I can try to help with that too. Though I can't say I'm the best at advice. This morning someone asked me if I should go with Uber or Lyft and I told them it depended what company their family wanted to sue when they were gruesomely murdered."

Paige blinked. "I'm gonna tell you about this anyway. Okay? Please, I mean?"

"Yeah." Sylvester grabbed a nearby chair and pulled it over, and Paige realized when he gestured that he meant her to sit in it. He grabbed another one for himself, settled it across her, and sat down. "Talk to me."

Paige opened her mouth and everything came spilling out. Details of how she ran into Linda on that rainy night, how that encounter had led to lunches and shopping and tanning at the beach. How the friendship of the older woman had done so much to make Walter's absence not easy, but not quite as hard. Her voice cracked once, ever so slightly, when she got to what they had discussed that morning, and how Linda had taken it, and how ever since she left Paige had been pacing the garage trying to figure out how to handle it, but not being able to think clearly enough to make any progress in that matter.

Throughout it all, Sylvester stayed silent, his expression sympathetic, giving her all of his attention without interrupting. When she finished, lowering her eyes, he stayed silent for another moment, only shifting his weight.

"You're not a terrible person."

Paige lifted her head, confused as to why he would lead with that, and then she remembered that the last thing she'd said was  _I'm such a terrible person_. She shrugged. "I feel like one. She genuinely likes me and now she thinks I'm just using her."

"Yeah, you probably only met her because Walter is away…"

"I actually met her because her date with my boyfriend led to her having a bomb strapped to her chest," Paige said, "but yeah, we're only friends because of the circumstances of me being parked by that curb on that night and her recognizing me and needing a ride home."

"But she can't think that means that you're not going to want to still be friends with her when Walter comes home. Who is only friends with their significant other?" Sylvester shrugged. "The answer to that is pretty much no one. And a lot of the time if you don't have any other relationships than your romantic one, that means something isn't healthy in your romantic relationship."

"Yeah, but like…our friendship was built on Walter being away. If he wasn't, I don't know if I would have put as much effort into starting to hang out with her as I did."

"But don't all circumstances shape what we say and do and want?" Sylvester said. "Without Walter I never would have met Megan. And that didn't mean that my relationship with her was in any way cheapened. She's the greatest thing that ever happened to me. And we all know you've been hanging out with Linda and she seems to really make you happy. That's not going to change when Walter comes home. Sure, you may see her a little less because you'll obviously be seeing him more, but you'll be seeing all of us less, at least when we aren't working. You're not the kind of person to drop a friend because it's suddenly less convenient."

"I guess. I just hate how she left like that. She's not the type of person to just take off. Not unless she's really flustered or upset. Then she is definitely that type. And like, you know how I get really upset when I know something I specifically said or did distressed Walter, or Ralph, or any genius, because I know how hard socializing can be for you and I hate when I make it worse, like, that's how I feel about this. She's such an awkward, anxious person, and…" Paige shook her head. "And I could just tell that she felt safe around me. And now she thinks I'm using her."

* * *

 "Mr. O'Brien!"

Walter turned. "Gutierrez. Hello."

It was rare that Walter and Alejandro Gutierrez were actually in the same place. The older man was one of the people in charge of the project that Walter was working on, but he managed scheduling and had several other National Security issues that he was privy to, so he spent a good amount of time in the United States, and on the four months that Walter had been doing these jobs, this was only the second time that he had actually come face to face with Gutierrez.

"Glad to have caught you," Gutierrez said, reaching out to shake Walter's hand. "Wanted to let you know that we have had some scheduling changes."

"Oh?" Walter asked, feeling slightly on edge. He was just over a month away from going home. If Gutierrez told him his project was being extended, he would have to accept the extension – the world was at risk. But he didn't want to. At this point, his feeling of duty toward the Greater Good, and Paige and Ralph's understanding of that, was all that was keeping him from rushing home to them. It was going to be hard enough to get through to the end of the year. He didn't know how he or either of them would handle being separated for longer.

"Yes. You will be going to France next week. This was initially not in the plan, but there are some folks undercover there that need your assistance."

"How will this affect the rest of my schedule?" Walter asked.

"We are closing a secret base in Mexico that is no longer needed. So you will just be going to a different location Tuesday and Wednesday. It may push our overall schedule back a few hours, because it will take longer to fly to Europe from here than Central America, obviously, but everything else should still be on schedule."

"Good."

"In some sort of rush, O'Brien?"

"No, sir," Walter said. He knew enough to understand that lamenting about missing home was not going to improve his relationship with his superiors. "Just glad to be efficient, is all."


	29. Chapter 29

Thanksgiving sucked.

Given Sylvester's history of folding like a house of cards, Paige was both grateful and impressed that he didn't let on to what was bothering her, even when Toby actually incorrectly assumed that she was simply missing Walter. That was certainly part of it. She was, above all else, thankful for her little found family, and the member of Team Scorpion who was most important to her – who she and her son were overwhelmingly thankful for – wasn't here.

This year, she was especially grateful for Sylvester.

But her guilt over the fallout with Linda was hanging over her head, so much that she could barely muster enough energy to appear convinced that she was thrilled to death with the rest of the group's rare enthusiasm for the holiday. She hoped that they all brushed off her unusually subdued attitude toward Thanksgiving as simply missing Walter.

She should have gone after Linda. Or called. Or texted. Heck, even poked her on Facebook, if that was still a thing. Done something to initiate conversation. It had to be Paige who did, because Linda was so horribly awkward, so anxious, and, most importantly, the person who felt hurt.

But, like she had before in situations when a situation could have been avoided by the more socially adjusted one taking a leap, she choked and did nothing. She supposed this was an improvement on how she treated Walter in the months before they got together, since she wasn't blaming Linda for the situation, but it wasn't as if that helped that situation any.

When the festivities broke up, Paige took Ralph's hand and walked out to the car. She was glad that Ralph allowed that. She knew he was getting to the age when he would stop wanting contact like that, and she never called attention to it when he pulled his hand away, but tonight he seemed to sense that she needed it.

This year, she was especially thankful for her son.

"Did you enjoy that meal?" She asked him as the car pulled out onto the road.

"Yes," Ralph said. "The stuffing was really good."

The stuffing. The stuffing that Paige had made last minute because Linda's plan for vegetarian stuffing hadn't happened. Paige knew her son was aware that she'd made it on a time crunch, but he didn't know why. He was trying to cheer her up. It wasn't his fault that it wasn't working.

"I'm glad," she said. "So what do you want to bet that Toby throws up tonight given all that cranberry sauce he ate?"

"One thousand dollars."

"Okay," Paige said, "I wasn't actually…how about ten dollars?"

"I say ten dollars he pukes. And double it if he says he didn't but Happy confirms he did."

"You're going to put me in the poor house, kid," Paige joked. "Fine. Ten, and double."

"Cool."

In the rearview mirror, Paige saw him put his headphones on, and so she turned the radio up just enough to make out what song was playing. Thankfully, the default station didn't have anything overly related to her current feelings.

Peering back in the rearview mirror as she turned onto their road, Paige saw Ralph's eyes closed, his head against the back of the seat. She wasn't sure if he was asleep or if he was just immersing himself in whatever song or lecture he was listening to, but she felt a pang of envy at his tranquility. She had no idea what she really wanted or needed to say, but she wanted to talk.

She wanted to talk to Linda.

She wanted to talk to Walter.

She really, really wanted to talk to her father.

Hell, she wanted to talk to her  _mother_.

Her phone chimed as she woke Ralph up, and she looked down at the display before they headed for the door. It was Walter. Paige put the phone back in her pocket. If it had been Linda, she would have stopped, made an excuse, and read it right then and there. Linda didn't deserve to be left hanging for even a minute right now. But Walter wouldn't know if she was free to answer. He wouldn't be nervous or stressing if she didn't respond for a few.

"Are we going to watch a movie or go to bed?" Ralph asked. Sometimes after a Thanksgiving dinner they watched a Christmas movie to kick off that season. But, Paige reasoned, they didn't do it every year, which meant it wasn't a tradition. And one couldn't break a tradition that didn't exist.

"Why don't we go to bed?" Paige suggested. "I know I'm tired, and you look like you are, too."

"I am, a little bit. Mom?"

Paige sighed. "Yeah, honey?"

Ralph cocked his head. "Is everything okay?"

Paige wanted to feed him a lie. But he was too old, too smart to fall for that. "No, Ralph. I have a lot on my mind right now. But it will be okay, I hope."

Ralph bit his lip. "Is it Walter?"

Paige walked toward him, shaking her head. She pulled him into a hug. "No, honey. It's not Walter. He's fine."

Ralph hugged her back, then stepped back and nodded. "Good. Good night, Mom."

Paige watched him head to his room, hoping that she hadn't inadvertently lied to him. What if something had happened to Walter and that's what his text was about? She fished her phone out of her pocket.

_Happy holiday, Love. Unable to phone tonight. Thankful for you. Immeasurably. Unapologetically. You and Ralph. Love you. Talk tomorrow._

Despite everything else, Paige smiled.


	30. Chapter 30

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So…THE SEX WAS SO GOOD IT WAS WORTH A THREE YEAR WAIT. Ayyyyyy.
> 
> Anyway here's an update to this fic.

"Three hundred forty thousand, two hundred point six four?" Paige repeated to make sure that she heard him correctly.

"Yes," Walter responded. "I'm positive."

"Okay. Thank you so much."

"Of course. No problem."

"Sorry to bother you," she said. "I know you need to get back to your class."

"It's okay. I'm glad to hear that you guys still need me on occasion."

"Oh, sure, on occasion," Paige joked. "Talk to you later, Love."

"Yes."

Paige clicked out of the call. "Yes," she said to Sylvester. "Three hundred forty, two hundred point six four."

"Great," Sylvester said, typing the numbers in. "And now we match Luczak's assessment. So let me print this out…and then as soon as Toby gets back, we can take this to her Long Beach office and we can fully commit to the next stage of the project."

"I'm already on it," Happy said, "so you can 'we' all you want, but…"

"We don't even have to wait until Toby gets back," Cabe pointed out. "He's just gone to get lunch."

Sylvester blinked. "But we didn't have breakfast. Also Luczak's assistant intimidates me."

"Sly," Cabe said. "I'm going with you. And that guy is terrified of me."

"Paige, Happy, Cabe and I will be back soon!" Sylvester said jubilantly, hopping to his feet.

Paige made eye contact with Happy as the two men left, and the mechanic rolled her eyes dramatically. Paige laughed. "Luczak's assistant is pretty intense, though."

"And he has a terrible sense of humor," Happy said.

"You really sore that he didn't laugh at Toby's joke?"

"He's my husband, so I stick up for him. Especially when the other guy is an ass." Happy put down the tool she was holding. "How is your part of this monstrous project coming?"

"Oh, delightful," Paige said sarcastically. "Gotta love monotonous programming."

"Hey," Happy said, "you're the only one who can do that. It's not good for a genius brain to get stuck in the same motion over and over again. That can lead us down a dangerous path."

"I'm…going to take that as a compliment?" Paige said hesitantly. Happy and her had a much better relationship of late than they had in the early years, but she couldn't help but notice that the mechanic often still referred to her as  _the waitress._

"Yes." Happy nodded. "It is. Trust me."

Paige smiled, opening her mouth to respond, but was stopped by the sound of the garage door opening. Toby entered, humming a holiday tune, and set the bags of food on the table, turning and grinning at his wife. " _Said Santa to a Hap-py, what have you been longing for_?" Toby tapped his fingers against the table. " _All I want for Christmas is my very own tool box in a drawer…_ "

"Stop singing," Happy said, looking up at him with her eyebrows lifted. "And why would I want a tool box in a drawer? That's either an obnoxiously large drawer or an obnoxiously small tool box."

"Why does it matter if the tool box is large or small? Size matters not, you know."

"Okay, Gollum."

"Yoda. But whatever. Not important." Toby took off his hat as he sat down on the edge of her desk. "You okay?"

"Yeah. I'm just stressed. We have to finish this job by the end of tomorrow and we're working a man down. And now that the part of the job that Walter was helping Sylvester with is completed, the most intensive part of it is my responsibility. And Walter has class and then gets on a plane where he can't have his laptop with him. So the assistance he just gave us, I have to work completely on my own. And no offense…but no one actually here in the United States is going to be able to help me like Walter could. Any assistance on this task would require someone who thinks a very specific way, and on this topic, no one thinks more alike than me and him."

"Happy," Toby said gently. "You will get this done with time to spare. Sure, you and Walter working together might be more efficient, but you won't be pressed for time."

"Well, it would still be nice to have the help."

Toby leaned over and kissed the top of her head. "He'll be home less than a month."

Paige watched as they smiled at each other. One positive to come out of this was Happy being more open about what she was feeling about the others on the team. Usually that only came out when one of them were under duress. She found it amazing that with all her work to help the geniuses develop EQ, it was the absence of the one who used to be the worst at it that really brought it out.

Toby smiled at Happy, then walked back over to the table, rummaging through the food bags and pulling out some select containers. " _Oh, it's a yum yummy world made for sweethearts, take a walk with your favorite girl, it's a sugar date…_ "

Happy tapped her pencil against the edge of the table. "I'm really regretting defending your joke."

* * *

"Have you decided what you want to do for your birthday?" Paige asked as she located a wooden spoon with which to stir her shortcake batter.

"I want to go visit Walter."

Paige sighed. Ralph was sitting at the end of the table, his elbows on the surface and his hands clasped. "I know you do, sweetheart, but you know that isn't possible. We won't know where he will be, and who knows what we could compromise by going to him."

"Well, he needs to save the world. He can't come to us."

"You're right, he can't, no." Paige glanced down to make sure she wasn't losing any of the batter. "But he will be home in a couple of weeks. And we can have another birthday celebration for you then."

"I know. I just…you guys are engaged now. He's going to be my dad. And Drew was never at my birthday either."

Paige set the bowl down, walking over to drop down on the seat adjacent to Ralph's. She put her hand on his back. "Ralph. Walter is not like Drew."

"I know," he said immediately, and she felt herself begin to calm down. "I know he's not missing it because he doesn't care, I just…I just never got the two parent birthdays growing up so far, and so I really look forward to all the two – parent stuff that I can have now. And this is just one more that I'm going to miss."

Paige bit her lip, then sighed, leaning forward to kiss her son on the temple. "I know, baby. I want to do all those family things too. And we will. We are going to have so many wonderful experiences together, honey."

Ralph frowned, shifting his weight. "I know. I just don't want to wait."

Paige tipped her head to the side. It wasn't like the three of them had been holding back. They already went everywhere together, did everything together, and had even taken a vacation together a few months before Walter left. But on the other hand, she understood. Ralph had always been paranoid, at least a little bit, that she and Walter wouldn't last. Now that they were engaged, he could fully embrace his desire for them to be a family, and it had to feel wrong for that to start out like this.

"I don't want to wait either, Ralph. But we're almost done waiting."

Ralph nodded, reaching over and taking his mother's hand, drawing it across the table toward him and then placing his hand over it, resting his head on the top.


	31. Chapter 31

"Mom, I know what I want for my birthday."

Paige looked up from her book. Since her initial inquiry, she'd asked him again twice, and he'd always shrugged and gave her a non – committal response. "Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"And what might that be?" She asked. "It's only two days away now, you know. So if it's something that needs to be ordered, you're not going to actually get it on your birthday."

"No," Ralph said. "This is easy. Well…" he hesitated, shifting his feet. "Maybe not easy. But you could take care of it today if you wanted."

"Is this food?"

"No." Ralph sat in the chair adjacent from the sofa. "I want you to talk to Linda."

Paige dog eared the page and closed her book, wondering where this had come from. "You…want me…to talk to Linda."

"Yes."

"For your birthday? You want that as your…birthday gift?"

"Yes."

Paige sat forward, resting her arms on her thighs. "Ralph, I'm a bit confused."

"You're the most important person in the world to me. And you've had this cloud hanging over your head since Thanksgiving. And I know it has to do with Linda. Something happened and you feel guilty about it. And it's making you sad."

Paige pushed down the anger that swelled up in her.  _How dare he…_ but Ralph was right. And with how defensive she wanted to get, she was even more sure he was right. She always wanted to push back when she'd been in denial about something and then someone else called her on it. At least she'd come far enough that she recognized that now.

"Ralph, relationships between adults are complicated and you aren't old enough to understand them."

Well, clearly she wasn't above belittling her son for not being born earlier than he was.

Ralph rolled his eyes, getting up. "Whatever, Mom."

"No, I'm sorry," she said quickly. "Ralph. Really. I'm sorry. That was out of line."

He turned back toward her. "Then will you talk to Linda?"

* * *

"Linda. Can we talk?"

Paige had never quite seen such a classic deer in the headlights look in person until Linda turned in response to her voice. "P – Paige."

"Yes. Hi. Do you have a minute?"

It was clear Linda did not, in fact, have a minute. Paige knew she would find her here because it was one of her scheduled nights for a speed dating event. And because of traffic and having to clear something up with Homeland, she'd arrived here nearly a half an hour later than she'd planned. She knew that talking to Linda now meant that the other woman would be pushing it to be ready for when folks arrived. But Paige was afraid that if she didn't say something now, she would chicken out. And, she reasoned, Linda could always say no.

"Uh…sure."

That was flawed reasoning. Linda was too awkward and too afraid to cause trouble to say no. Whether she'd meant to or not, Paige had coerced her into this conversation. It reminded her of all the times Tim Armstrong had brought things up in front of the team or last minute – or both, in the case of meeting his folks – and she'd agreed to it because she'd felt trapped. The more time that passed since that relationship, the more Paige was realizing that it had been incredibly unhealthy. She didn't want to do the same thing to Linda, even unintentionally. "Lin, you're busy, I see that. I'm sorry. We can talk another time, if you want to. Just text me, okay?"

"No!" Linda took a step toward her. "No, we can talk now. It's okay. Over there?" She gestured to an area on the patio that was free of tables or food. Paige followed her over. "Okay," Linda said, giving her a smile. "What's…what's…going on?"

"I need to apologize," Paige said, deciding to come right out with it. "For what happened right before Thanksgiving.

"Oh, no need to apologize," Linda said, waving a hand dismissively. "If anything, I should be the one to apologize, I was the one who…"

"No." Paige held up her hand. "No, you didn't do anything. I was a jerk. A putz. Whatever you want to call me. I shouldn't have kept going on about how great it was that I had you in my life while Walter was gone. Because yeah, you've made this easier on me, but not because I was looking for a replacement. You've made this easier on me because I like you so much. You know that those of us on Scorpion don't have a lot of outside friends. Happy has Ada, Sylvester has his cosplay group, but that's honestly pretty much it. And I've really loved having you as a friend. And…" she took a breath. "And when Walter comes back, yeah, I'll have less time to hang out. But I still want to. We're going to have a heavier case load once he's back because we'll be able to handle more, and yeah, that's when friendships fade away. I know that. But I want to really, really try to keep this one. I never thought I would have said this when you first came into our lives, but Lin, you mean a lot to me. And I'm sorry if I acted like you were just some sort of surrogate companionship."

Linda looked off to the side. "I was such a baby just walking out like that."

"You had to do what you had to do. Especially if I made you feel like that was your only option."

Linda gave a small smile. "We could keep this going all night, you know, but I do have to get some folks on the fast road to love in a couple of minutes, so…" she opened her arms. "Friends?"

Paige moved to Linda, hugging her back in relief.


	32. Chapter 32

Paige was standing in front of Cabe for a solid minute before he noticed. Closing the notebook he was studying, he rolled the chair back a few inches and looked up at her. "What's bothering you, kid?"

"What should I do when he gets back?"

"What?"

"Walter," Paige said, shifting her weight. "He gets back in just two weeks. And I don't know what to do when he does."

"You're asking me for advice on what to do when he gets back?" Cabe asked, a slightly mischievous and very much amused glint in his eye.

"No, I mean…what I mean is…" Paige shrugged. "He's used to being away, always on the move…will he want to throw himself back into Scorpion? Will he want to stay at the garage but not take cases right away? Or will he want to come back to my place to unwind?"

"Have you talked to him about it?" Cabe asked. "Because it's possible that he may not even know yet. He may not know until he comes home whether or not he immediately needs his routine back."

"I suppose." She bit her lip, planting the toe of her foot on the floor and twisting back and forth. "I just wish I could know. I wish I knew what he needs."

Cabe tipped his head to the side. "You worried about him coming back?"

"No." She shook her head. "Not…not in the same way I was scared when he left, just…I've never had someone come back before. And I know there's bound to be an adjustment period and he will need some help reacclimating to everything here. And I just don't know if I should line up a case for us or if I should tell the rest of the team that neither he nor I nor Ralph will be around for that first week. And…it's stressing me out, a little bit. Not knowing the answers, I don't know." She looked away, hearing the chair squeak as Cabe rose.

"Hey." He put a hand on her cheek, and she looked at him. He smiled. "I know it's easier said than done, but try not to stress. Focus on what you just said. That for the first time, someone's coming back. That's what's important. You'll figure out what he needs once he's home. If he doesn't know, you don't have to know. And whatever he does need, the rest of us will be able to handle it. You guys need your time. You aren't machines."

Paige smiled. "Thanks."

"I know it's easier said than done," he repeated, patting her on the arm. "And you know Allie and I are always willing to listen if you need to talk."

"I know. I really appreciate it, Cabe." Paige bit her lip again, and Cabe stepped forward and hugged her, somehow sensing that's what she'd wanted. "Thank you," she whispered again.

* * *

_Did Ralph have a good birthday?_

Paige smiled at the flood of emojis that followed Linda's text. She swore the woman and Sylvester could go toe to toe in an emoji war.  _Yes he did,_  she responded.  _Just a little informal party with the team. Walter called during. Very nice. Sorry you couldn't make it._

_Me too. But I can't say I'm sad to have my mom back a few days early._

_I don't blame you._

Paige dropped her phone on the table, walking into the living room where her son was curled up on the couch. His video game controller was in his hand, but the game had gone into sleep mode. So had Ralph.

Paige sat down next to him and leaned over, wrapping her arms around him. "Birthday boy."

"Hmm."

"Ralphie," she said. "You gotta sleep in your own bed."

"Hmmph."

Paige decided to leave him be. "Okay," she said with a smile, reaching over and grabbing a blanket from the chair and covering her son with it. "I love you, baby."

Ralph sleepily rolled onto his back and cracked open his eyes. "I love you, Mom."

He tugged at the blanket, signaling to Paige that he would rather just close his eyes and drift back off rather than get up and go to his room. She patted his side and rose, retrieving her phone and heading for her own bedroom.

Walter wasn't able to talk to her privately tonight due to the time difference and his adjustment of his schedule so he could 'attend' Ralph's party. Paige took Cabe's advice, thinking ahead to the time just a few short weeks ahead when he'd be back in her arms. She longed so badly to hold him, to touch him, not even necessarily in a sexual way. She just wanted to feel his chest and his arms and his shoulders and know that he was right there with her again, to be certain of his exact location after months of vague indicators and to have the power to keep him right there.

She wanted to hug him.

Of all the ways that she missed their physical contact, she realized that more than anything else, she just wanted to hug him.

She got into bed, on top of the covers, and rolled onto her side, her phone in both hands.

_Going to bed, Love. Talk to you tomorrow._

She knew he wouldn't answer – if he was where she thought he was, he was probably training at the moment. She grabbed the other pillow and pulled it to her chest, lifting her head to rest her cheek on it. It wasn't Walter, but it would have to do. Just two more weeks.

She tried not to think about how he wouldn't be home for Christmas.


	33. Chapter 33

Paige almost thought it was funny when they got called to a case on Christmas Eve – because when did they not? She thought back on her time at Scorpion, and no, there was not a single year where they either weren't working or getting themselves out of some life – threatening situation at Christmas time. Sometimes she didn't mind it. Saving Owen was one of the most fulfilling moments of her life – and she knew it was the same for Walter. Still, she thought as they squeezed into Cabe's vehicle to head to the airport for a flight to Vallejo, it would be nice to have a quiet Christmas.

Thankfully, the case was fairly straightforward, with no particularly harrowing moments. "Thanks for the break, big guy," Toby said when they returned to the garage, kissing his fingertips and then raising them over his head. Happy rolled her eyes, and he grinned as he looked at her, then smirked in Paige and Sylvester's direction, as if proud of himself.

"You're a weirdo," Sylvester said.

"You're all weirdos," Cabe said with a smile. "I'm going to head out. Allie's sister flew in tonight and they are doing a meal. Her parents will be in tomorrow."

"So you're not going to be present for the annual Scorpion Christmas party," Toby said. "Shame. It was going to be rocking this year."

"Yeah," Sylvester said, rolling his eyes. "We haven't even been able to plan anything; we've been so busy. Unless Paige has something up her sleeve…"

All eyes fell on her, and Paige shook her head. "Not really. Sorry."

"Don't be sorry," Happy said. "I got permission to go see my dad tomorrow. So I don't think I'll be able to make it, either."

"I was…I was actually going to go with her," Toby said hesitantly. "Uh…"

"Are…are we not having a get together this year?" Sylvester asked, his eyes wide.

"It seems not," Cabe said.

The garage fell silent.

"Oh my God," Toby said, "Scorpion is falling apart."

Happy elbowed him. "Why are you so dramatic?"

"Honestly," Paige admitted, "we're tired and…and I know I haven't slept in my own bed in over a week, and I'd really like to have some time with Ralph. We haven't gotten to spend much time together lately, just the two of us. So maybe…maybe we just take a year off from the big…team…celebration? Not because we're…not because we care about each other any less, just…sometimes it's nice to have smaller groups."

"That sounds nice to me," Cabe said. "And once Walter is back and he's ready for some intense socialization, we can have something then."

"I like that," Sylvester said.

Happy nodded. "Agreed."

"Okay, well…" Cabe looked around the group. "Merry Christmas, team."

Toby smiled. "Merry Christmas."

Sylvester, Paige, and Happy echoed the sentiment.

After Cabe and Happy and Toby left, Paige looked at Sylvester. "Are you…"

"I kinda have plans too," Sylvester said. "I'm being Skyped in to Ireland so I can be a part of their festivities. So don't worry about me being alone. I won't be. But…" He gave her an affectionate smile. "I appreciate you thinking about me."

They hugged, and Paige smiled. "Merry Christmas, Sly."

* * *

Paige couldn't remember the last time she slept in until noon – and it was Christmas Day at that. But thankfully, Ralph was too old to really be so excited about the holiday that he was rocketing out of bed before the sun. And she had been working so hard the past few weeks, trying to get everything at work arranged and organized for Walter's review when he returned, she'd been staying up late to have a few minutes on the phone with him, and they had been called on case after case. Even easy cases took a toll when they were seemingly non – stop.

Her bed had felt nice when her back hit it the previous night, even without Walter next to her. It turned out that exhaustion could trump loneliness, at least temporarily.

Paige rose, reaching automatically for her phone. There were several texts, from Happy and Toby and Sylvester and Linda and Cabe and Allie, as well as one from a number not in her phone book but had an area code that suggested that the Christmas wish was coming from her mother, and one that spelled Scorpion with an E, a dead giveaway that it was Ray. And as she scrolled through them all, replying in kind, her phone buzzed again.

_Merry Christmas, Paige. Sorry I couldn't communicate earlier. Christmas is not celebrated where I am. Had an early meeting. I am thinking of you every moment. You and Ralph are the reason that this holiday means so much. I love you. Five days._

Paige was smiling over the text when a second one came in, also from Walter, this time just a slew of Christmas related emojis. And an eggplant. She wasn't sure what sort of Christmas thing Walter assumed it represented, but she put a hand over her mouth and giggled.

She rose, showering and putting on the ugly sweater that she had bought on impulse while out with Linda the previous week, pairing it with leggings and fuzzy boot knockoffs. Upon leaving her bedroom, she saw that Ralph's door was open, a sign that he had in fact beaten her up.

She found him sitting in the living room, on his laptop, and she walked in front of him, walking her fingers across the top of the computer to alert him to her presence. He looked up, then paused whatever was on his screen and pulled off his headphones. "Mom. Merry Christmas."

"Merry Christmas, sweetie." Paige smiled when the boy put his laptop aside and stood, moving in for a hug. "Do you want to go out for breakfast? Or did you already eat?"

"I just finished off the open box of cereal." He smiled at her, and Paige realized how close he was getting to her height. She'd had a similar revelation on his birthday – how was she having another already? "Let me make you pancakes."

"Oh no, baby," Paige said with a smile. "You don't have to do…"

But Ralph was already moving to the kitchen. "Cooking is a science. I know Walter sucks at it, but I know I can make pancakes. I've done it before. Let me!"

He looked genuinely excited at the opportunity, so Paige smiled. "Okay. I suppose I can let myself be spoiled a little bit."

Ralph grinned at her as he reached up into the cupboard for the griddle.

"What do you want to do today?" Paige asked. "I know we hadn't planned anything at the garage, but I'd assumed we'd be there, so I don't really have anything…"

Ralph was somehow already mixing batter, and Paige wondered if she'd severely misremembered how long she had been rambling on about not having plans. "Did you have any ideas? We could go to the beach."

Her son shrugged. "Not really. I'm okay with anything. The beach could be nice."

Paige suddenly wondered if he was unhappy about the team's plans to spend Christmas within their most intimate dynamics. There had been so many lonely Christmases with her and Ralph, them having no one but each other. Maybe he was disappointed to be reminded of that time in their lives. Before Scorpion. Before Walter. Before they had a sense of identity and belonging.

"Are you okay, Ralph?" She asked, walking closer to her son.

He looked at her, furrowing his brow in a way that reminded her so much of Walter. "Yes. What's wrong?"

"Nothing. I – I guess…I guess this, us being alone on Christmas, it's a lot like how things were when you were young, and with Walter not here either…" she frowned. "I just hadn't thought about how this might stir up weird memories."

Ralph poured the batter in equal portions on the griddle, then set the bowl down and looked over at her. "To tell you the truth, Mom, this does remind me of all that. But…" he bit his lip, taking a tiny step toward her. "But it's honestly…it's kinda nice."

"Yeah?" Paige tipped her head to the side. "Really?"

Ralph nodded. "Because it's nice sometimes to be reminded of how much you and I have been through, and despite us having Walter and having the team, we still have us."

Paige felt the warm smile break out over her face and she pulled him into another hug. "I love you so much, Ralph. So, so much."


	34. Chapter 34

Paige's old vacuum had had a sensor on it that was red when the carpet underneath was still being cleaned, and it turned green when it went over a spot where there was nothing to pick up. She had had this new one for almost a year and for some reason hadn't realized until this afternoon that it didn't have that feature. She'd been working on the living room carpet for over ten minutes now – and she didn't have the sensor to tell her if it was clean or not; logic told her that it should have been fine minutes ago, but she was convinced that it was still dirty.

The same applied to the book case and the coffee table. She dusted almost daily, and yet looking around the living room now, she could have sworn it looked like she hadn't touched anything since Walter left.

"How am I supposed to clean this whole place by tomorrow?" She muttered to herself. She should have started yesterday. But Linda had wanted to go to lunch, and then she had to get some paperwork in to Homeland, which was due before the New Year. Logically, she wouldn't have had the time to spend a relaxing Christmas with her son, get everything else she had to get done finished with, and cleaned the condo before this afternoon.

Logically, the place didn't really need much cleaning anyway, but Paige wasn't going to claim that she was thinking logically, with the period of Walter's absence being over, less one day.

She switched off the vacuum and grabbed a can of Old English from the windowsill, spraying it onto a damp rag and beginning to shine the coffee table.

She stopped after a few seconds. She'd done this already. That's why the rag had been damp when she'd picked it up, and why the can was already out.

She let out a deep breath, directing the air upward to puff at her bangs, forgetting for a moment that she hadn't had bangs in years. She stood up, looking down. The coffee table looked fine. Pretty damn good, actually. She still couldn't say the same about the carpet. Maybe it just required fresh eyes.

"Mom?"

Just who she wanted to see. "Yeah, Ralph? Hey, can you tell me if this carpet still looks dirty? I feel like it is, but I vacuumed over it pretty…" Paige trailed off. Something was wrong. There was conflict all over his face. Her motherly instincts kicked in hard, and she felt a rush of concern. "Baby, what's wrong?"

"Um, so…" He cleared his throat. "Daniel texted me, and his mom is in the hospital."

"Oh no!" Paige dropped into the chair next to her son. "Do they know what's the matter?"

"They think it's her appendix."

"Oh no," she said again. "I had mine out when you were four. Do you remember that?"

"I remember you crying a lot because we didn't have health insurance."

Paige bit her lip. "Yeah, you're right. I did do that." She fell silent a moment. "Is Daniel at the hospital?"

Ralph nodded. "Yeah. So…here's my conflict."

"Okay. Yes. Tell me."

"I think Daniel needs me. He has a former sitter of his at the hospital with them, but she and him never really got along as well as either of them would have liked."

"Do you want me to drive you to the hospital?" Paige asked. "I can. We can go right now."

"Yeah, but here's the thing. His mom is going to still be in the hospital tomorrow. She's high risk for peritonitis, he said. He's scared, and if I go there, he's going to get upset and anxious when I leave."

It only took Paige a moment to realize what her son was getting at. "And so if you go to be with Daniel, you won't be able to come with me to the airport."

Ralph nodded solemnly.

"I see what you're saying."

"I've been imagining seeing Walter again the entire time he's been gone," Ralph said. "And now he's going to be my dad, I might be…actively choosing to not be there when he comes home, and like…am I a bad son if I'm not there at the airport with you?"

"Oh, Ralphie," Paige said, reaching out and touching his face. "You're not a bad son. You could never be a bad son."

Ralph looked down. Paige wished she knew what to say to him. She'd also imagined tomorrow's reunion ever since that painful July morning when Walter had walked out of their sight. And she'd never pictured that reunion without Ralph.

But Paige knew how badly Ralph wanted to be there to welcome Walter home. And if he was willing to give that up to spend time with a friend in need, well…her son was far less selfish than his mother. And wasn't that what every parent wanted – to bring their child up to be better than they were?

She laid her hand on Ralph's leg, and waited until he lifted his head to look at her before speaking. "I'm very proud of you, Ralph. And so is Walter. You're exactly the kind of son anyone would want." She patted his knee, rising to her feet. "Pack your overnight bag. Let's go to the hospital."


	35. Chapter 35

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the final chapter. I have really loved writing this fic and exploring this storyline possibility over the past months, and anyone who is still along for the ride, I'm glad you enjoyed it, too. i appreciate every follow, favorite, and review. It was kinda hard to end this fic as I got pretty emotionally attached it it (but if I could say goodbye to Serendipity, I suppose I can say goodbye to anything), but the story I wanted to tell here has been told. Here's to Waige, in our fics and in canon. They're pretty incredible, no matter where they are.

Paige looked behind her, seeing another plane overhead, landing gear down. She knew Walter's flight was due in soon, but she had no idea if it was the plane that was just coming in or the one that had landed fifteen minutes ago. Walter hadn't texted her yet – which surprised her if his plane was the first, but his plane  _was_  already supposed to be here. She looked over at the board that listed the flights and their status. Yep. His flight was supposed to have already landed, and it still said ON TIME. She tapped her foot, telling herself not to get worried.

Her phone buzzed. Paige almost dropped it, fumbling and getting a grip on it just before it tumbled. It was Walter. Paige swiped her finger across the notification, suddenly paranoid. What if he was telling her they got delayed? That he wasn't actually on either of these planes? That wasn't logical. His flight took off seven hours ago – he would have told her by now if he wasn't on it. Taking in a deep breath, she swiped again, opening the message.

_Taxing to the gate now. Sorry didn't text earlier. Was Facetiming Ralph once we landed._

Feeling a rush of relief, Paige texted back, her fingers shaking.  _Good to hear. And yeah, he's sad he isn't here._

_He's doing a good thing, though. I told him I was proud of him._

Paige smiled.  _I am, too._

Her phone buzzed again almost immediately.  _I should be to you in less than ten._

Less than ten. Less than ten. Paige didn't think her heart could race any more.

She shifted her weight. She didn't understand why she was so nervous, but there was no other reason for her stomach to be doing flips and for her to have run to the airport restroom to throw up twice in the past half hour. This was how she got when she was nervous and didn't have anyone to distract her. Maybe she should have asked Linda to come.

No. She didn't want to share this moment with anyone on the outside. But sharing the waiting…Paige shook her head.  _It's not like you could ask someone to meet you here, wait with you, then leave when Walter shows up._

She shifted in place again, watching the hallway ahead of her. Her eyes shifted to the board even though she already had confirmation that Walter had landed.

She supposed she was so worried because she had never done this before. She'd left on a plane with Ralph, waving goodbye to Drew, and she'd never met him at the airport because he never followed them as planned. She'd stood in this very airport saying goodbye to Walter five months before – also the same airport where she had bid farewell to Tim Armstrong. But this time it was different.

She was finally here to welcome someone home.

Maybe worried wasn't the right word. Maybe this also was what this kind of excited felt like.

People were starting to file out into the greeting area. Paige was surrounded by people with iPads, holding them up with the names of the people they were waiting for on it. She fondly remembered Walter holding up a hand – written piece of paper to direct his parents.

Walter was coming home. And knowing that Ralph wasn't going to be there, he had talked to him first.

She'd expected Ralph's father to come home to her a dozen years ago. And today, he finally was.

And then she saw him. In person, in real time, for the first time in over five months. It took him just a moment longer to see her, but when their eyes met, and he broke out into that grin of his, she almost felt weak in the knees. He didn't look exactly the same; he had lost some weight, and his hair was shorter than she preferred it, but it was him. They were the closest they'd been in a long time, the distance shrinking with each step he took, but it felt just as unbearable as the time apart.

Paige started walking toward him, everything in her power needed to prevent her from running. She wasn't going to be like  _that_. That's what they did in the movies. That was dramatic. That was over the top.

But Hell. Her soul mate was home, he was here, he had come back, and he was here to stay. Nothing about their relationship was storybook – why  _not_  have this moment?

She picked up her pace, jogging the last few steps, and then she was in his arms, feeling him solid against her for the first time in what felt like forever, crying like she had when she'd let him go…but somehow also not at all like that.

She leaned back just far enough, then captured his lips with her own, placing a hand on the back of his head, wondering at how different the short hair felt against her fingers. She decided she liked it after all.

Their lips separated, and they fell back into the tight embrace. Paige wondered if anyone was looking at them.  _I hope you're all looking at me. There's billions of men in the world and I have the best one._

She felt his hand slid up into her hair, and then he was cradling her head, rocking them gently side to side. "This goes without saying," he whispered, "but I missed you."


End file.
